“Pleading the Fifth” has become a kind of pop-culture reference with the rise in popularity of TV cop dramas.
We hear the phrase often in our popular media and we’ve come to believe it’s just something one says when facing down the authorities. However, it really isn’t that common of an event, and it can still be quite surprising when someone uses the phrase in a government hearing…
Especially when that someone is the Attorney General of the United States.
Congress has been looking into the highly questionable, and seemingly illegal payment that the Obama administration recently made to our enemies in Iran. As part of their investigation they’ve called the Attorney General to testify before them about the administration’s attempts to secretly send $1.7 BILLION to Iran. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) sent Lynch a letter with a series of questions about the how the payment was first approved and then delivered. However, in response to their inquiry the Attorney General sent one of her assistants to Congress to relay her message that she would not be saying anything else about the Iran payout.
Rubio and Pompeo responded almost immediately, calling the AG’s reticence to answer to the American people, “unacceptable.”
“It is frankly unacceptable that your department refuses to answer straightforward questions from the people’s elected representatives in Congress about an important national security issue. Your staff failed to address any of our questions, and instead provided a copy of public testimony and a lecture about the sensitivity of information associated with this issue.
As the United States’ chief law enforcement officer, it is outrageous that you would essentially plead the fifth and refuse to respond to inquiries. The actions of your department come at time when Iran continues to hold Americans hostage and unjustly sentence them to prison.”
The Washington Free Beacon reached out to Rep. Pompeo, who was happy to express his disgust with the AG’s decision to stonewall Congress and cover for Obama.
“Who knew that simple questions regarding Attorney General Lynch’s approval of billions of dollars in payments to Iran could be so controversial that she would refuse to answer them? This has become the Obama administration’s coping mechanism for anything related to the Islamic Republic of Iran—hide information, obfuscate details, and deny answers to Congress and the American people… They know this isn’t a sustainable strategy, however, and I trust they will start to take their professional, and moral, obligations seriously.”
However, another Congressional source told the Free Beacon that the Obama administration would likely continue the stonewalling process for as long as possible because there really was no other alternative. The reality behind what happened between the Obama team and Iran is so disgusting that they cannot allow the public to hear the truth before the election.
“Every Obama administration official and department involved in the Iran Deal appear to be running for cover,” the source told the WFB. “Like we feared, the [Iran deal] is turning out to be a disaster and Iran is emboldened in its aggression. Evidently Attorney General Lynch and the Department of Justice have decided ‘refusal to cooperate’ is their best strategy. But this is dangerous and ultimately won’t protect them from anything.”
Just to recap, the Obama administration is mired in a situation that could end up proving to have been completely illegal (paying ransom to a terrorist supporting state in an effort to free captives, among other problems), and when Congress does their job and investigates… the chief law enforcement officer in the country, the Attorney General, takes measures to protect the culprits. Loretta Lynch is supposed to be rooting out criminal behavior and ensuring that our justice system does its job, instead she’s defending the lawbreakers and ensuring that our legal system cannot operate properly.
Sadly, such is life in the Obama era.
