'I Hope You Realize How Ridiculous The Four Of You Look': Whitehouse Loses It On Trump Nominees

[0:03] just to finish senator blumenthal's point i hope you realize how ridiculous the four of you look [0:09] spouting these preposterous canned answers in a forum in which a you're supposed to tell the truth [0:18] and b you're supposed to demonstrate the judicial capacity to make independent factual decisions in [0:25] hard cases if you can't even sit here and say that joe biden won that election or that the capital [0:32] was attacked what's left what's left if a hard case comes your way as a judge and let's say the [0:44] trump administration is bearing down on that why would we ever believe that you would give the [0:50] litigants a fair hearing and a fair decision if the executive branch was leaning in on you [1:03] when we can't get a reasonable answer out of any of you with the executive branch [1:08] leaning in on you to give these ridiculous answers today i'm really sorry to have to go through this [1:16] and that you have to go through this but it would be nice if you could tell your executive branch [1:22] handlers for instance miss clark i'm supported by lindsey graham he's a friend of president trump [1:34] he's the second senior person on the republican side in the judiciary committee he's likely to [1:38] be the next judiciary committee chair i think i'll be okay i don't need to make myself ridiculous at [1:47] your direction be great if you could have said that it would be great if your answers were simple [1:53] if you could have said that it would be great if your answers were simple [1:58] let me ask a different question a legal question a judge you're you want to be judges a judge gets [2:04] a threat a threat to the judge's life or to the judge's family can you imagine a scenario [2:16] in which liability may attach to individuals beyond the utterer of that threat [2:24] miss clark senator as a prosecutor there are instances where um there's [2:39] some responsibility that is assigned to someone uh who is not the utterer of a threat to an [2:47] individual and so to answer your question yes i can imagine you agree yes senator and if confirmed [2:56] to the bench i would follow all supreme court precedent and ninth circuit mr rick do you agree [3:01] yes senator i would agree with that i don't know that i care what you think miss swesterkamp because [3:06] you're going international trade and you're probably not going to see much of this but [3:08] do you agree um yes senator yeah and those doctrines that [3:14] would provide the legal basis for investigation in those scenarios would include doctrines like [3:24] name one miss clark senator doctrines that are if someone is essentially carrying out [3:34] um solicitation would that be one solicitation of the threat [3:40] or a conspiracy out of which the threat emerged would that be another one [3:44] yes yes how about uh and it's the product of an enterprise under the racketeering statutes would [3:51] also be another way that liability could extend beyond the utterer that is correct senator can you [3:57] think of any others miss lane where liability extends beyond the utterer of the threat what [4:00] are some of the legal theories that would support that kind of investigation and prosecution senator [4:07] the doctrines you mentioned i would agree with and i would just look always to the federal law [4:12] and federal statutes guiding that mr ricky senator i would agree with that i think you [4:17] covered the major ones conspiracy rico there may be other avenues of potential [4:23] legal liability but i think you covered the three big ones in that in that scenario [4:27] ms westerkamp you agree um senator i'm not aware if there are any more with my practice before the [4:33] court of international trade and quarter federal claims it doesn't touch on criminal law so here's [4:38] why i asked you these questions i asked you these questions because right now federal judges are [4:43] under the worst shadow of physical threat in my lifetime and perhaps in the history of this country [4:50] and in responding to those threats we have the united states marshal service which was [4:56] in charge of the justice system and i have now over a dozen times asked the marshal service [5:04] will you investigate behind the utterer of a threat if the evidence justifies it that's a [5:14] super easy question the answer is yeah of course we will they won't answer that they won't answer [5:19] that and i point this out because judges across the country need to pay attention to the fact that [5:28] the marshal service won't confirm that it will [5:33] investigate behind the utter of a threat if the evidence supports that and why would that be the [5:41] case that would be the case because when you get behind the utterer of a lot of these threats [5:46] you run into right-wing conspiracies and this mega department of justice would rather not go there [5:57] and so they leave justices judges exposed with investigations in which they aren't doing [6:06] investigative 101 work that you've all identified as [6:10] plausible legal theories and we need to fix that we need to fix that