Government

Democrats Keep Letting Ego Get In The Way Of Oversight

The Corey Lewandowski hearings show that House Dems need to get out of the way and let lawyers do the talking.

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Corey Lewandowski (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Republicans, predictably, turned the testimony of Corey Lewandowski into a circus. The witness was hostile to the point of contempt. The Republicans were only interested in defending the president. And the Democrats, amazingly, seemed caught off guard by the whole spectacle.

Lewandowski came in asserting “executive privilege” over conversations he had with President Donald Trump. It’s an incredibly stupid legal argument because:

1) The privilege is not Lewandowski’s to assert, it’s the president’s;

2) The president likely has no executive privilege over conversations he had with people who don’t work for him or any branch of government, as Lewandowski did; and

3) Whatever privilege might have been had was waived when Lewandowski voluntarily spoke to Robert Mueller about the conversations he was called in front of Congress to testify about.

Lewandowski’s disingenuous strategy was telegraphed through the media, as well as his obvious strategy to waste Congress’s time and appear sneering and hostile before them, yet the Democrats seem to have no answers.

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If the House Judiciary Democrats were serious about getting answers out of Lewandowski, they might have had a judge, in the room, to rule on his ridiculous use of executive privilege. They might have been prepared to vote him in contempt of Congress on the very spot. They might have been prepared to ask the Sergeant at Arms to arrest Lewandowski for that contempt, or a friendly member of the Capitol Police. They might have been ready to fight this malicious piss ant with something more than exasperation.

None of that happened. Instead, the Democrats mainly meandered through their set of useless questions and prepared one-liners. Lewandowski came prepared for a fight, and the Democrats came prepared for a show. It was all terribly frustrating and crazy-making to watch. I turned off the television and played video games while listening to Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor.

… I had to catch Barry Berke in the morning. After all the Democrats had their say, and the Republicans had their chance to hop around throwing feces, House Judiciary counsel Barry Berke got 30 uninterrupted minutes to question Lewandowski. And he drew blood.

Here’s the full video:

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Here’s Professor Jennifer Taub’s excellent tweetstorm about the questioning:

THIS is what this hearing was supposed to be about. Berke caught Lewandowksi in many lies and half-truths, regularly backed that up with Lewandowski’s own contradictory statements, and generally exposed the obstruction of justice Lewandowski had a front row seat to witness. It’s why Lewandowski was called to testify. Berke defenestrated him in half an hour.

Most people, including me, didn’t see it in real time. The news channels weren’t carrying it live by that time. Berke only got to go after all the Congresspeople had their moments to (largely) mug for the cameras.

Folks, this is a huge problem with the Democrats’ prosecution of the case against Trump. The Democrats want to say that Donald Trump is engaged in an unprecedented level of corruption and obstruction, but they themselves keep behaving like “normal” Congresspeople, which means mugging and jostling for television time, and holding hearings in a way to make it look like they’re doing something, instead of holding hearings in a way that actually accomplishes something.

It is political MALPRACTICE for each and every one of these Congresspeople — with varying levels of preparedness — to waste time in these important hearings while people are paying attention, only letting the real lawyers talk when most people have tuned out.

If Democrats really want to put “country over party,” then they must start with themselves. Congressional oversight of the Trump hearings is not a time for Democrats to run for re-election. Trying to hold a criminal president accountable, and build public support for that accountability, is not a time to get off your packaged one-liner so you have something to put on your official Twitter page. This can’t be Little League Baseball anymore: NOT everybody gets to play. There are more important issues here than making sure each Congressperson has their five minutes to be “seen.”

That hearing should have been designed to make Barry Berke famous, not designed to make sure Congressman Who-the-hell-ever got some screen time on CNN. Berke broke Lewandowski. He made Lewandowski look like the small, weak Trump fluffer that he is. That should have been the overwhelming visual coming out of the hearings, not Jerry Nadler’s exasperated face.

The only reason for the Democrats to structure the hearings the way they were, and the way they were for Robert Mueller, is ego. Their own freaking ego. Congresspeople, many who themselves have legal training, don’t think of themselves as particularly BAD at asking questions of a hostile witness. Their hubris extends to thinking that they ask better questions than “the lawyers,” because they think themselves some kind of political geniuses for winning their districts (districts that in many cases are gerrymandered so hard a braying ass with the D or R after their name could win, just ask Steve King). They’re desperate for the attention a high-profile hearing brings (the reality of fundraising is real), and they’re used to being treated with “respect” by people who need something from them.

For the most part, they’re totally unprepared for what the Trump administration is bringing. Trump witnesses have no respect for Congress, do not fear being held accountable, have PROBABLY been told that they’ll get pardons anyway, and have spent far more time preparing their testimony than Congresspeople have spent trying to figure out how to break them. House Judiciary keeps coming to these things expecting to put on a show for the American people, and the witnesses keep coming preparing to fight to the death.

It takes a lawyer, a real one, one with experience dealing with criminals and hostile witnesses, to get anywhere with these people. Cross-examination is a skill, one they don’t teach you in law school or while working on corporate mergers and acquisitions. You need experience to do it right. AND you need more than five minutes.

Nadler could organize these hearings so that the lawyer went first, and then all his members piled on. He could structure them so that each side had the same amount of time, but in a block, to do with what they wished. He could do a lot, he’s got a lot of power here.

But to wield it correctly, Democrats first need to get over themselves. Nobody is there to hear Congresspeople make speeches and jokes about the goddamned New England Patriots. Everybody is there to see if Trump will be held accountable for crimes. Professionals should question these witnesses, and Nadler should only be there to dangle literal handcuffs if witnesses don’t comply. Everything else, literally everything that doesn’t involve professional cross-examination of Trumpsters, is a useless show.

Democrats must be better.

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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