Kind of hoping there's a strategy here. His answers don't seem solid.

As I've said elsewhere, as a federal employee, I can assure anyone who asks (as can other feds) that we are most certainly accountable to Congress, the President, and the American People.

We are accountable to the law.

The idea the president has a popular mandate and accountability superior to Congress would have been baffling, infuriating, and heretical to the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution, and this is obvious to anybody even glancingly familiar with what any of them had to say about it.

Doesn't the U.S. have enough private sector corporations? Why set up the President to compete with them?

The government, by design, serves a different function. And it requires expertise to do it. Sauer is a fool.

As a federal employee, we sure as hell answer to Congress. We also answer to the White House, and to the American People.

We don't have to treat the President as an unaccountable private sector CEO to make that happen. It already does!

There can be no logical limiting principle when you set the President up as a king.

The Constitution provides broad limits on the President by making that office respect the law. Absent that, you really have nothing.

They are arguing for monarchy by ignoring the part of the Constitution that prevents it, full stop.

And some of those include accountability to Congress, some to the President, and some more directly to the American People.

It isn't necessary to treat the President like a monarch to have accountability for the civil service. In fact, that turns the civil service into the President's army.

There are lots of centers of power in the U.S. that do not answer to the President. Or is his argument that they should? Are we actually arguing for a kingship, here?

As for the civil service: it answers to the law, which specifies a host of ways for being accountable.

To be clear: I'm not proposing letting anyone who knew (or should have known) better with respect to something like this off the hook. I'm just guessing that files on someone as well connected as Epstein will contain a lot of names for things other than criminal (or icky) activity.

It's also extremely frustrating that Mace, one of the most craven and seemingly unstable people in public life, consistently uses her survivor status to push blatantly anti-survivor themes, including protection of monsters like Donald Trump.

Jen - please tell us what is going on. We don't know what this is referring to.

Or even...
3) "You are the Speaker of the House, and responsible for certain checks and balances. Do you feel it's your job to be aware of current events, including what the Executive Branch is doing?"
4) "Do you think the American People, for whom you work, should accept that answer from you?"

Some follow-ups I'd like to hear:

1) "Now that you have heard about it, what is your comment?"
2) "Given that the House is in recess, you should have some time to review. When can you come back to us with some thoughts?"

Is the database searchable?