The part where Acting DNI Joseph Maguire really blew it for Donald Trump today
Throughout his public testimony today, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire came off as a guy who was in over his head and he knew it. He seems like someone who wanted to do the right thing with the whistleblower complaint, but he either couldn’t figure out what that was, or he was too new and powerless in the position to be able to do it.
Maguire spent most of his testimony acting like he was afraid of both sides. If he said too much, his boss Donald Trump might come down on him. If he said too little, the Democratic House might come down on him hard. So he tried to say just enough to survive the hearing, and nothing more. If he was trying to avoid hurting Trump, there was one key part where he really blew it.
Maguire tried to use executive privilege as his basis for not answering certain questions about whether he spoke with Donald Trump about the whistleblower complaint. Only the president can invoke executive privilege, not the people who are speaking with the president, so that doesn’t hold water to begin with. But even if executive privilege were a thing here, Maguire ended up waiving it – perhaps without realizing it.
At one point Joseph Maguire was asked if he’d discussed Ukraine with Donald Trump. He answered that he had not. By answering the question, Maguire waived executive privilege for the entire topic. That means he also waived executive privilege for whatever he and Trump discussed about the whistleblower report. House Democrats are already fighting in court to get executive privilege thrown out in Trump’s scandals. Maguire just handed them something they can take into court and make their case much stronger.
