White House communications director Hope Hicks appeared before the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday for a closed-door interview related to Russian interference in the 2016 election, but refused to answer questions about her time in the White House, according to Republicans and Democrats on the panel.
Hicks, who was behind closed doors with the committee for more than nine hours, initially refused to answer any questions from investigators about the presidential transition or her time in the White House, with her lawyer telling the panel she was doing so under instructions from the White House.
It was only after Democrats tried to subpoena Hicks for her testimony on the spot, and it became clear that Hicks had discussed the transition in a recent interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee, that she and her legal team conferred with the White House and then answered "most" of the committee's questions about the transition, according to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the panel.
"This is a breathtakingly broad claim a privilege that I don't think any court would sustain, and I think the White House knows that. This is not executive privilege, this is executive stonewalling," he told reporters after the Hicks interview.
Source : Yahoo
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