Attorney General Jeff Sessions didn't want to answer a lot of questions during his Wednesday testimony and he used a claim of "executive privilege" to dodge many of the toughest ones. Why did Trump fire Comey? Sorry.
“Until such time as the president makes a decision with respect to this privilege, I cannot waive that privilege myself or otherwise compromised his ability to assert it,” he explained. In other words, Sessions made a de facto claim of executive privilege. He apparently doesn't understand how this works. In fact, it's been four full months since Sessions first refused to answer questions about his conversations with the Trump. “I’m protecting the president’s constitutional right by not giving it away before he has a chance to view it and weigh it,” he said.
During that June hearing, Sen. Kamala Harris pushed Sessions to specify under what legal authority he was declining to answer questions. The nation's top lawyer came up short on answers but was saved by two white male GOP colleagues who shushed the woman of color in the room asking tough questions. How dare she.
In the intervening time, Sessions hasn't done much homework. Democrats expected as much, compelling them to send our highest ranking legal authority a letter explaining that they expected him to have "determined" in advance of the hearing whether Trump was invoking executive privilege. The notion that Democrats had "demanded" a status update got Sessions a little hot under the collar. Sorry, cookie, you should have done your homework.
As it was, Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse also got a little testy as he tried to explain to the nation’s attorney general how executive privilege works after Sessions finally specified that the legal authority he was using to dodge questions was a 1982 Reagan memo.
Whitehouse: Let me know if any of this has changed. That rules says that “executive privilege will be asserted only in the most compelling circumstances and shall not be invoked without specific presidential authorization.” Is that still the rule?
Sessions: Executive privilege cannot be invoked except by the president.
Whitehouse: “Congressional requests for information shall be complied with as promptly and as fully as possible, unless it is determined that compliance raises a substantial question of executive privilege.” Is that still the rule?
Sessions: That’s a good, good rule.
Good, but not good enough, apparently, for the nation's top lawyer.
The memo does allow for a period of "abeyance" in which a president can weigh whether she or he wants to actually invoke the privilege. In Sessions world, that apparently means he can suspend congressional inquiry in perpetuity until such time as Trump manages to wrap his mind around the legal questions at hand—which, let's face it, could take a very long while.
In the meantime, between claiming the executive privilege he doesn't yet have but might someday get and dealing with a mind ravaged by memory loss, Sessions isn’t answering much of anything about Russia. Isn't that convenient for a guy who bristles at the notion that he somehow colluded with Russia to steal our elections.