There was and is a small craft warning for New York waters. However, I am not a small craft and wasn’t entering the water.
And it was crucial that after what feels like an entire week parked in front of my TV, transfixed by the House Intelligence Committee hearings, I get outside. You know, air and sidewalks and shops and stuff like that. I was a little wobbly — hadn’t walked around for quite a while — but I walked.
One of my pals on Twitter — who’s a lawyer — tweeted something like, “After sitting in front of the TV from 9 am to 10:30 pm, I am drained of my will to live.”
But the hearings made a surprising adjustment to my circadian rhythm, an adjustment I’ve been painstakingly working at for a year or so. I woke up early before the alarm. Apparently, my inner clock would not let me miss a moment.
A number of highly intelligent people who are not lawyers are worrying about whether the Democrats should subpoena Bolton, Pompeo, Perry, Rudy, Mulvaney, et al.
Here’s my sense of this. Aside from the time it would take to work through the courts — time which would allow the powerful impression of the witnesses perhaps to dissipate — I don’t think lawyers would choose to pull hostile witnesses into the House chamber and interrogate them without having thoroughly vetted their potential testimony. Because you can’t guarantee what each of these people might say and you don’t want to ask a question to which you don’t know the answer.
Which would mean the House staff lawyers would have to pull apart virtually everything those people have said or tweeted, line their words up against the trustworthy words of the honorable witnesses, and prepare to challenge every lie. I’m imagining a lot of doubletalk from a small group of perpetual liars.
Moreover, while exposing a lie from a witness in a criminal trial in front of a non-partisan jury does probably toss the witness’s entire testimony out of the jury’s minds — you know, that tedious cliché TV thing when a lawyer has shown a witness to have lied about something and then says, with a theatrical sneer, “Why should we believe anything you say?” — the “jury,” in this case, will be senators who’ve already said they’ll believe any and all lies without exception.
The only possible hand the House Democrats could hold is if they can cite specific criminal laws to the attorneys of these characters, laws that will be applied to them given the activities they’ve been participating in.
But when you have the superior witnesses we’ve all seen, why strain to get iffy or daffy testimony from proven scoundrels. We’ve already seen and listened to Gordon Sondland. Can you imagine spending any time listening to Rick Perry, or Rudy?
I have the patience to wait for their indictments.
P.S. I sent money to Adam Schiff. His campaign asked for $5. I sent $50.