Biden DOJ shields ex-Trump officials from testifying about election fraud cases

[orangecrush]

A top official in President Joe Biden's Justice Department blocked efforts by Senate investigators to probe the handling of voter fraud complaints in the aftermath of the 2020 election, according to transcripts released Thursday.

As Senate Judiciary Committee aides investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election questioned top Trump-era Justice Department officials, a DOJ attorney present for the interviews intervened repeatedly to say such questions were outside the scope of the panel’s inquiry.


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The official, veteran DOJ attorney Bradley Weinsheimer, cited guidance he issued in July that paved the way for congressional testimony but limited the topics former DOJ officials were permitted to discuss. But his assertions drew repeated, and sometimes pointed, challenges from Judiciary Committee aides in both parties, the transcripts show.

“It strikes me as completely within the scope of this interview,” said Sara Zdeb, chief oversight counsel for Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), after Weinsheimer intervened to block an answer from Byung Pak, a former U.S. attorney from the Atlanta area. Pak resigned on Jan. 4 under pressure from Trump to interfere in election-related matters.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/10/07/doj-shields-ex-trump-officials-515594

[CentralMass]

1. Wtf.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

3. Read the article it was mainly Republican questions being stopped

And it only happened a dozen times. The story buried the lede that the committee was being given unprecedented access.

[stopdiggin]

6. and with prearranged constraints and scope agreed -(nt)-

[Nictuku]

4. At first I was like "WTF" but I see some logic here

They didn't want to allow the questioning to change the topic from the investigation into what Trump was doing to pressure these people into a free-for-all Republicans asking about what type of election fraud they investigated about the election. I could see the entire thing go off the rails if questions about "what have you investigated about the 2020 election where Trump Won"

[stopdiggin]

5. this is a politico article

and has the typical Politico 'mash' on it (particularly the headline - also typically Politico)

- snip - Durbin told reporters on Thursday that he isn’t concerned about the refusal to allow the witnesses to answer certain questions because the interviews themselves were extraordinary in the first place.

“What opened the door to this inquiry was the decision by the attorney general that they couldn’t hide behind any type of privilege,” Durbin said Thursday. “They could testify as to what happened. So I think generally speaking, just the opposite is true. I think Merrick Garland’s position has really opened the door for more inquiries like this.”

But a spokesperson for the Judiciary Committee's top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley pointed to the refusal to answer certain questions and said it contradicted DOJ’s promise to be transparent.

"It’s remarkable that while President Biden took the extraordinary step of waiving executive privilege to publicize the former president’s deliberations with his top advisers, Biden’s own Justice Department thwarted the same level of transparency when asked about records the Department provided and what it did to actually investigate claims of irregularities in the 2020 election,” said Grassley spokesperson Taylor Foy.

Most of Weinsheimer’s interjections came during questioning by Republican counsel Josh Flynn-Brown. - snip -

[SidDithers]

7. Politico is trash...nt

Sid

[struggle4progress]

8. Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he will be appointing Bradley Weinsheimer as Acting Associate Deputy Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice ...

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-announces-bradley-weinsheimer-replace-departing-associate

That's probably a good indication that Weinsheimer is a wingnut fruitcake

[orangecrush]

9. Why are these people still...

Never mind.