Trump Gifted Francis

During his visit to the Vatican, President Donald Trump gave gifts to Pope Francis, a normal exchange of gifts between heads of state.

Trump gifted Pope Francis a first-edition set of writings from Martin Luther King, Jr. The White House said the set includes the five books King wrote in his lifetime. Each one is custom-bound and the books are in a custom display case. It also included a piece of granite from the Martin Luther King, Jr, Memorial in Washington.

Maybe Trump should have included, in addition to those, a copy of Martin Luther King, Jr’s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, along with a section of the bar of the cell in which MLK was imprisoned while he wrote his Letter.  A copy of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses would have been a good gift, too.

Mike Flynn Demurs

Regarding ex-NSA chief Lt Gen Michael Flynn’s (USA, Ret) refusal to “cooperate with” Congress’ subpoena to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee and to provide subpoenaed documents to it: he says he’ll invoke his 5th Amendment right not to testify against himself.

It’s certainly his right to invoke his right not to testify against himself, and no conclusion regarding his guilt or innocence of any crime can be drawn from that.  Nor should one be.

However, he has no right not to appear before the committee and testify.  The committee should send the capital police to get him and bring him before the committee to testify, even if against his will: his will has no bearing here; the subpoena has not been quashed.  Then, the committee members should put their questions to him, one by each, putting each question onto the record and thereby putting each of his 5th Amendment invocations similarly on the record.  The committee also should ask for those documents, one by each or by category, requiring him to invoke the 5th each time there.

The committee also should obtain and execute a search warrant to get those documents.

No more delays.  No more stalling.