Senators in today’s Intelligence committee hearing questioned the four top intelligence officials in the Trump administration: Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.  The Senators wanted to know if Trump had asked any of them for special treatment of Michael Flynn, or to interfere in the open Russian investigations.

All four initially suggested that they didn’t feel pressured.  The committee made it clear that nobody cared.  Did Trump talk to them about Flynn or the investigations?

They refused to answer committee questions.  They all followed Coats’ lead, who said he felt that speaking about Trump’s conversations would be inappropriate.

This is the Senate oversight committee, which is legally and constitutionally required to be given full and unrestricted access to any actions these executive officials have conducted.

The four argued that the conversations might be subject to executive privilege.

Here’s the trick with ‘executive privilege’: it never exists on its own, automatically.  The President has to assert the privilege before it exists.  No assertion; no privilege.  And there is no secret privilege; executive privilege is a public record.

When the committee pressed the four officials on this specifically, Coats and Rogers admitted that they didn’t know about any executive privilege.

The four then asserted that it would be inappropriate to talk about the conversations because there was classified data involved.  When pressed on this claim, they eventually admitted that the questions the committee was asking did not include classified information.  The committed was asking a simple ‘yes or no’ question.  They could have resolved the entire issue by simply saying ‘no’, Trump hadn’t asked them to obstruct justice.

They didn’t.  When the four continued to insist they didn’t feel the information should be disclosed, they were reminded that their personal feelings were moot: They had all pledged oaths to present the truth, and the whole truth, regardless of their feelings.

Finally, when pressed repeatedly, DNI Dan Coats admitted that he had no legal reason to deny the questions.  That was the last of their justifications.  They were stripped bare.  They had no legal or moral reason to not answer.  They were clearly in legal jeopardy.  The committee pointed this out to them in detail.

All four still refused to answer whether Trump had ever asked them to back off investigations of his organizations, his friends, or his administration.  Maybe I’m missing some extra-legal… something-or-other, but I can’t see this as anything other than a betrayal of their oaths of office.

It’s clear they’ve chosen Trump over their country, their oaths, and the constitutionally mandated duties.  I’m not at all surprised about Coats, who made the same claims to the House committee.  I’m not entirely surprised about Admiral Rogers, who is also a Trump appointee.  I’m a little shocked about Rosenstein and McCabe, though.  They were respected, career professionals.  Note the past-tense.  As of today, they’ve discarded their reputations for nothing more than Trump’s nonexistent gratitude.

This is a crime, and not a small one.  These four (and presumably, Trump as well) are asserting that Congress should not be allowed to oversee the executive branch..

This is a constitutional crime.