Mark Warner Asked The Make Or Break Question of The Russia Hearing

Last updated on June 8th, 2017 at 10:05 pm

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Sen. Warner asked the make or break question of the Russia hearing when he pointed out that the hearing is not about the intelligence officials’ “feelings,” but about facts regarding what was said to them by the President of the United States, who is “not above the law.”

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the top ranking Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee, grilled Intel Chiefs over their flimsy “feelings” dodge of direct questions about President Trump’s possible interference in the Trump Russia investigation.

Warner charged, “What we don’t seem to have is the same commitment to find out whether the President of the United States tried to intervene directly with leaders of our intelligence community and ask them to back off or downplay.

“You testified to your ‘feelings’ response; candidly, your feelings response is important, but the content of his communication with you is absolutely critical. The President is not above the law, if the President intervenes in a conversation and intervenes in an investigation like that, would that not be the subject of some concern?”

Watch here:

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the three Intel Chiefs NSA chief Mike Rogers, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe all took varying degrees of dodging questions, refusing to say whether or not they had been asked to interfere in the Trump Russia investigation.

They often took the dodge of “I feel” or “I didn’t feel,” which is a pretty obviously sketchy way of avoiding the facts.

Here’s an example of Admiral Rogers to answer, saying, “I feel it is inappropriate, Senator” to which Senator King (I-ME) responded, “What you feel isn’t relevant, Admiral.”

Watch here:

Another example of the feelings dodge was when Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe wouldn’t answer Senator Martin Heinrich’s (D-NM) questions about conversations McCabe had with James Comey about his talks with President Trump, claiming they might fall within the purview of the special counsel’s investigation.

King asked, “Is there some prohibition in the law that I’m not familiar with that you can’t discuss an item that you’ve been asked directly?”

Rogers answered, “I feel it is inappropriate.”

King wasn’t having that, “What you feel isn’t relevant, Admiral. What you feel isn’t the answer.”

Here’s Coats admitting that he is not sure he has a legal basis for not answering:

The one thing the intel chiefs didn’t say was that they had not been told by the President or his people to lay off the investigation. All they were sure about, it seemed, was how they “felt” about it. But feelings are not facts.

It is a very simple question to answer, and Mark Warner was right. “You testified to your ‘feelings’ response; candidly, your feelings response is important, but the content of his communication with you is absolutely critical.”

The content of the communication is the only evidence that is needed, their feelings are irrelevant.

Update: Story correct to reflect Warner is a Senator from VA.

Sarah Jones

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