‘Presidents Are Not Kings’: Judge Says Trump Can’t Block Subpoena | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

Rachel Maddow reads passages from the decision by U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson that former White House counsel Don McGahn cannot avoid testifying to the House impeachment committees just because Donald Trump has insisted he has executive privilege to prevent it. Aired on 11/25/19.
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'Presidents Are Not Kings': Judge Says Trump Can't Block Subpoena | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

77 comments

  1. Tyranny – we are at the point that the president’s behavior has risen to the level of tyranny! How can ANYBODY defend this con man any longer?

    1. We must unite as one to perserve our nation & our Constituition. Political divides are meaningless.
      There is now only one side in this struggle, you’re either an American or you’re not.
      Do your civic duty to protect our liberties!
      Organize, mobilize, & protest.

    2. @Orions Reach
      Yes, the Senate holds the trial & Supreme Court Justice presides.
      REAL Americans (not fanatical Trumpsters) MUST flood their Senators email with demands to vote to REMOVE Trump from office. If you don’t, you only have yourselves to blame if he is re- elected!
      God help us all if that happens.

    3. @Shannon Davis BRIBERY
      and that is only one of the many impeachable offenses. He has been violating the emoluments clause since inauguration day. Mueller listed 10 seperate counts of obstruction. I would bet everything that he has been evading taxes for decades and laundering money as well. If you still support drumpf you are either a traitor, a foreigner or too stupid to deserve the right to vote.

    4. @John Kidd
      How did you become so blatantly ignorant?
      This is how it works:
      The Congress gathers evidence in both closed & open HEARINGS!! After that, like a grand jury the entire Congress convenes to review the evidence & vote to impeach (indite) or not.
      When impeachment is passed down… Congress sends their findings & inditement to the Senate to hold the actual trial of the president.
      Both sides get to question/ cross examine the president & witnesses
      supeoned by the Senate trial attorneys & the presidents personal attorney.
      Any questions?

  2. ‘Presidents are not kings…’ Here’s how predictable ‘tiny dump’ is, his first reaction will be to question this federal judges party affiliation and the proceed to call them names, publicly enlist citizens to hate or dislike this person all due to following the LAW. This is what the republicants fear only because his anger will draw out the worms, trolls and Putin-lovers which value party OVER country, constitution and laws only due to this puny little man!
    Most of these so called constituents favoring the man are people he’d probably turn away from in real life due to what they represent in our society, you don’t have enough money ti impress him or benefit him…and by the way,
    ALL ROADS LEAD TO PUTIN.

    1. Mind Freshener so what’s your excuse for all his appointees in prison? (Flynn, manafart, young’ goin to prison too, hopefully guilliani will serve time as he tries to blackmail anyone who taken him into their confidence…oops, don’t forget Cohen, his other personal lawyer serving time currently.)
      You cannot use partisan claims for everything, granted ‘tiny dump’ is NEVER accountable for all the lies he states every freakin day, but then again there’s a lot of people who idolizes reality stars…
      Deny, divert and discredit…the scum is predictable honey

    2. @paula cheeseberger You can bust half of DC on the same charges. The question you should be asking is – why are the Spy Agencies, the Judicial Branch and the MSM colluding with one Party?

    3. @Myriam Ickx I don’t care for her ruling. What I care about is that it was hidden in mountains of biased partisan garbage. Learn to read!

  3. The orangeutan has hidden behind lawyers throughout his miserable life; now, evidently, AG Barr is his personal consigliere

  4. I smell a purge coming on, a purge of the Republicunts from history. If only Lincoln could see them now. He would be so ashamed.

    1. @Frank Winkhorst there are still good Republicans. I am one. There just aren’t any in Congress right now. We need a cleansing fire to burn out all the dead wood and hopefully something good can rise from the ashes.

    2. wrong its DEMS -purge from their on side old one v.s. young ones this looks like 1968, or 1972 for DEMS as well for REPS. as from the over side looking at your side it looks like DEMS- are going through THE FRENCH REV- 100 DAYS OF TERROR – if you not 100 percent with us its off with you head , these are SEN BERNIE who i did vote for in 2016, the REP. AOC, part of DEMS about 20 percent but are the power and wolfs v.s 80 percent of sheep . but after 8 years of TRUMP and 4 years of an other REP PRESIDENT then i do see DEMS winning PRESIDENT again as as in FRANCE NAPOLEON did come out of all that mess to power . i think my side power for 5 years is 100 percent chance 9 years at least 55 percent chance

  5. “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.” 
    ― Franklin D. Roosevelt

    “I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.”😲
    –Trump

    “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
    ― Theodore Roosevelt

    1. @Steven Cooper First , I nor my ancestors didn’t do anything to Native Americans. They were oppressed & poor in Europe as were most would be Americans.
      Second: Our revolution (1776) against the English was before France’s (1832)
      Third: The systemactic genocide of American Indians began with the Spanish invasion in 1491, by 1691, 130 million indigenous ppl had been killed or died of Euro diseases. The majority of the murders we’re committed by Spanish, English & French military during colonization period.
      1491- 1700.
      The American western advance continued what had already massacred the Indian population.
      Let’s not forget that the Carribean Island natives had been made slaves for Spanish, French, Dutch traders & colonists before America’s slave trade began.

    2. Dearly Diane
      Crystal Giddens
      Naomi Ogle
      William H
      Davids11131113
      Dicky Jones
      Janet Masiello
      Janet Airlines
      Irish Buck
      Jeffrey Meade
      Bucky Pinata

      Suspected:
      Bubbles McGee
      Danny Ferrara
      Bully
      Tim Yu
      Miles North
      cj p
      mikael feathers
      ihave35cents
      Shawn Corbin
      Mike Smith
      Brian Gardner
      Billy Pardew

      Do not respond directly to the trolls it’s how they get paid. The above are known russian trolls.
      Please give this a thumbs up so that everyone sees this list and stop feeding the trolls. Feel free to add to the list and copy and paste on every political video.

    1. iam 180 degrees on the other side of you, but your MAGA- is funny or cool . my side can take and under stand a joke thank you

  6. Trump convinced his cult followers that he was going to drain the swamp. But how can you drain a swamp when you believe that certain people should be above the law? That’s not how you drain a swamp, that’s how you create one.

    Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, who once taught at Harvard Medical School, wrote a paper titled Cult Formation in the early 1980s. He delineated  primary characteristics, which are the most common features shared by destructive cults.

    1. A charismatic leader, who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose power. That is a living leader, who has no meaningful accountability and becomes the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority.

    2. A process of indoctrination or education is in use that can be seen as coercive persuasion or thought reform commonly called “brainwashing”.

    The culmination of this process can be seen by members of the group often doing things that are not in their own best interest, but consistently in the best interest of its leader.

    3. The exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling members.

    Here are 10 warning signs of a potentially unsafe group or leader.

    • Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

    • No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

    • No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement.

    • Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

    • There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

    • Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.

    • There are records, books, news articles, or broadcast reports that document the abuses of the group/leader.

    • Followers feel they can never be “good enough”.

    • The group/leader is always right.

    • The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

    As we’ve all seen,  when it comes to the warning signs and characteristics of a cult, Trump and his followers check most of the boxes.

  7. The seperation of powers is something the attorney general does not understand.. where do they get these people from. A first year law student should understand this.

    1. They fully understand it and know the lower courts will rule against them. They just want to delay as much as possible and/or get their conservative Supreme Court to rule for them.

    2. You find a swamp…wade to the middle and under a big ole stone you find Barr froggy eyes bulging and going “Ribbet Ribbet”…( or is Trumpetity Trumpet better in this instance ?)

  8. For a man who claims to be the most transparent President, I have never seen anyone fight so hard to block and hide things.

    If everything he has done is above board and he has been completely truthful, Trump should be encouraging everyone to go before Congress and just tell the truth.

    He should have just released his tax returns but going all the way to the Supreme Court to prevent its release to Congress should make everyone wonder why.

    Trump wants to be a dictator, like Putin and Xi, he does not care about democracy or the American people.

    1. @calvin clark, which proves you drank the Trump kool-aid. Listen to the way he speaks and the things he says. He admires people like Putin, Xi, Kim Kong in, who are all……?
      You just made yourself look insane with that comment.

      What you fail to realise is Trump does not care about Americans, Trump cares about himself. Everything is about him. He is still the same arrogant Don from Queens.

      He recently called a Fox program and ranted about nonsense for nearly an hour, calling adults silly names and you think that is normal for the POTUS?
      He has disgraced that office and lowered the standards of it.

      He lies constantly, he is immoral and just downright deplorable but none of that matters to people like you.

      Republicans used to pride ourselves as being the fiscally conservative, party of morals and family values, then Trump came along and debased it.

      We have hateful people like you constantly dividing us for whom?
      Someone as immoral and filthy as Trump.

      Trump is a racist, who seeks to divide this country, not unite it. Whether you accept it or not there are over 300 million people living here, not everyone has the same ideology so you have to find a way to respectfully get along with your fellow Americans, your fellow human beings, instead you encourage hate and division.

    2. Carlie M WELL SAiD! He is the opposite of transparent. He goes through hoops and ladders to NOT show his tax returns. And . WHY should we believe he has nothing to hide? 🙃

  9. This ruling is a much needed lesson on US Civics for all Americans. The Constitution is a beautiful and powerful curb to tyranny.

    1. Meh, this partisan judge used the occasion to insert 118 pages of allusions and gaslighting.
      Judges are supposed to be independent. She is not fit for the office.

    2. @calvin clark The founding laws of the Constitution? That Constitution?

      The one that Donna tRump uses as toilet paper? That One?

    1. Those scums who stick with trump have no honor, I doubt they ever have that courage. Criminal always seek protection from the mafia boss.
      Anyone who have even a tiny bit of honor, a tiny bit of love for America, already moved themselves away from trump the con man.

    2. So should Barr and Jordan and McConnell. And, the list is soooooo long just for their either support or complicity.

  10. When one has no clue what he is doing, he does what his character thinks he should do, the president has no moral character.

    1. I would think if a lawyer thinks he can ignore a subpoena from Congress, he should automaticaly lose his license to practise. Disbarrment would be a powerful tool to keep lawyers like McGhan (and RUDY) in line.

    1. as one of the RED MENACE- we have been call , kkk, nazis, so now iam not sure if this is trying to hurt us or make friends with us. your side has changed the meaning of words so much we dont know what your side is talking about , as do the people in the middle class dont know or under stand and dont care about name calling . .my side thinks TRUMP wins everything – i e same states as 2016 again plus add on N.H., N.M., N.V..

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