[See Update1 and Update 2 at the bottom]
Mueller must be given all the time he needs to present his testimony in a single narrative!
Elizabeth de la Vega is a former federal prosecutor with more than twenty years of courtroom experience. During her tenure, she was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Chief of the San Jose Branch of the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. She has some very important advice for the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee concerning the FORMAT of any possible upcoming hearing with Robert Mueller, and she wants us to all pass this URGENT message along.
She says it is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL that Mueller be allowed all the time he wants to tell his story. The format of five minutes per side, or even 30 minutes with staff questions will be a disaster. Here is her thread:
Here is the unrolled version of this thread:
Elizabeth’s Twitter feed is brilliant. She brings her vast prosecutorial experience to bear and is a great resource for insight and tactics related to the investigation into Trump and Russia. In particular, she has pushed hard to get the House Judiciary Committee to demand that professional staff lawyers be used to question Barr, as was adopted, and resulted in Barr’s refusal to testify.
I understand that some may say that it would be better if Nadler had capitulated and agreed to only have members question Barr. However, I agree with Elizabeth, it would be a disaster to allow Barr to define the terms of his questioning. The 5 minute format makes it impossible to conduct any real investigation and inform the public. It is imperative that Congress win this battle before moving on to further detailed examination of more consequential witnesses.
Elizabeth has also implored members to never ask ‘Why?’ in a question, calling it a ‘cross examination 101’ mistake. If you ask a witness a ‘why’ question you simply give them the opportunity to spool out their prepared false self-serving narrative. According to de la Vaga questions should be very specific, short and directed at getting the witness on record. For example, “When exactly did you meet with Trump? Did you have any discussions about firing Mueller? Yes or No?” Force them to answer succinctly. If they waffle nail them down. Then move on to the next question. If you saw Kamala Harris in Wednesday’s hearing, that is how it is done. We need to have hours and hours of that kind of questioning.
Elizabeth knows what she is talking about and she is asking for help in spreading the word.
When Mueller is brought before Congress, it must be done correctly. There will only be one initial chance to get it right. If public opinion is to be carried, it is critical that the full story be told. Enough time must be taken to spell it all out.
Please do what you can to promote this urgent appeal!
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Update 1 - Thanks to all for passing this important message along! Wanted to take a moment to promote a couple of the comments and share with you Elizabeth de la Vaga’s lasted addition to her thread.
SouthernFriedYankee in his first comment ever on DailyKos writes:
Ms. de la Vega is absolutely correct. For my first Kos comment, I’ll expand on the admonition to never use “why” in cross examination, from my perspective as a criminal defense lawyer (and criminal defense lawyers generally need to cross more frequently than prosecutors). As venerable cross examination tacticians have written, never use the seven “enemy words” in cross examination, or in Congressional examinations of recalcitrant (mal)administration witnesses — “who” “what” “where” “when” “how” “why” “explain.”
hummingbird4015 writes:
THERE IS AN EMAIL MAKING THE ROUNDS FROM PROTECTDEMOCRACY.ORG ASKING FORMER PROSECUTORS TO SIGN A STATEMENT — IF YOU KNOW ANY FORMER PROSECUTORS PLEASE GIVE THEM THE LINK TO protectdemocracy.org
Busterforte writes:
My understanding is Norm Eisen is one of the Staff attorneys for the House Judiciary Committee. He has been silent on twitter since he took the assignment. Eisen is the reason Barr refused to appear because Barr didn't want to be crossed examined by Eisen for 30 minutes.
Let me say that Norm Eisen is one of the smartest most principled people in this country. He previously served as White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform, United States Ambassador to the Czech Republic, and board chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). He is the absolute last person in the world that William Barr wants to face across the table.
Also, today Elizabeth de la Vega added a link to the first two hours of John Dean’s July 1973 Watergate testimony. As she says, you don’t need to watch the whole thing to get the idea of how precious this kind of testimony is:
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Update 2
Lots of great advice coming in to day from the experts. Glenn Kirschner, a 30 year federal prosecutor and NBC News analyst says forget Barr, we are done with him. He writes:
In the comments below NP40 agrees with Kirschner:
Dems don’t need Barr. The senate fiasco ruined any credibility he had. Dems need to leave well enough along. Send him a Contempt citation or impaching him or both and start calling up Mueller’s team to testify.