Thread by @PalmerReport

1) Senate Democrats are handling theBarr and Sessions testimony exactly like they should. In fact they’re handling it in the only way that has a chance of succeeding; any of the more “aggressive” approaches being pushed by pundits would result in guaranteed failure.

2) Democrats can’t “just subpoena” Barr and Sessions now. Why? They’d almost certainly respond by fighting it in court, which would take a year or two, which would get them off the hook even if they end up losing. Often, the most “aggressive” move is a way to guarantee failure.

3) Nor can the Senate just have the Sergeant at Arms haul in Barr and Sessions, and throw them in the congressional jail cell if they refuse to testify. Nice visual, but any judge would immediately free them – and then of course they’d never end up testifying.

4) The only option is to use the threat of a subpoena – which would save then from testifying but still cost them a ton in lawyers fees and make them look guilty – to convince them to testify voluntarily. It’s called leverage, and it’s how literally everything works in politics.

4) Will this work? No way to know for sure. But it’s the only approach that even has a chance of working. Any other approach would automatically fail. Pundits know this, yet they try to make themselves look fierce and clever by pushing magic wand ideas they know wouldn’t work.

5) As usual, the Democrats are following a smart and savvy strategy that has the best (in this case only) chance of working. And as usual, the media and the pundits are misrepresenting it in order to push a ratings-friendly narrative about the Democrats being pushovers.

6) Barr and Sessions both have potential criminal exposure on this, so they may decide to fight against testifying, for fear of incriminating themselves. They also have to worry about getting caught committing perjury; unlike in the Trump era, they’d be prosecuted for it now.

7) Sessions may decide to testify so he can plead his innocence and throw Rosenstein under the bus. Barr could decide to testify because he’s arrogant enough to think he can outsmart the Senators, and because he craves relevance. Or maybe they won’t testify. We’ll see.

8) But for God’s sake, stop beating up on the Democrats just because you don’t know how any of this works. And stop listening to pundits who are bashing the Democrats for not being more “aggressive” on this. They know full well that their magic wand approaches would fail.

9) And stop listening to the defeatists who are insisting Barr and Sessions will magically win by testifying and lying the whole time. That would be fantastic, because getting caught committing perjury would make it a whole lot easier of a decision for the DOJ to prosecute them.

10) And yes, this DOJ will be more willing to prosecute perjury. The last time Sessions and Barr got caught committing perjury, they were each Attorney General at the time. They weren’t going to prosecute themselves. But they’re not in charge anymore.

11) But back to the original point, because it’s really important: the single dumbest thing Senate Democrats could do right now would be to subpoena Sessions and Barr without first giving them a chance to testify voluntarily. Any pundit who claims otherwise is lying or clueless.

12) When the Democrats ended up having to subpoena McGahn to testify after he refused to do so voluntarily, he then managed to drag it out in court for two years, before finally agreeing to testify last week. Not due to any weakness by the Democrats. It’s just a shitty system.

13) Does immediately subpoenaing Barr and Sessions, and then fighting them in court for two years before they finally testify, sound like a winning strategy to you?

There are no magic wand solutions in politics, on either side, ever. There is only applying the leverage you have.

14) Finally, be kind to animals.

That has nothing to do with this thread, just wanted to end with something positive 🙂