Mr. Ebbers, who resigned from WorldCom in late April after a steep decline in the company's stock price and a deterioration in its financial situation, surprised the committee with a pithy statement before he invoked his right against self-incrimination.
And Democratic lawmakers say they are wise to the bait that Mr. Trump is placing before them when he invokes Ms. Waters, an outspoken black woman whose jeremiads against the president conservative media outlets delight in amplifying.
It's telling that he invokes watching television before relating an allegedly personal story.
Standing before Hradčany Castle he invoked the spirit of the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution, issuing a rallying cry for the people of the world to use that revolutionary power to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons: "Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century".
If he is to have the benefit of the privilege at all, and not be confronted with the argument that he has waived a right even before he could have invoked it, he must be able to raise a bar at the point in his testimony when his immunity becomes operative.
Despite its origin, the Antiquities Act has never before been invoked by the indigenous peoples of this continent, whose cultural relics the law was intended to protect.
But it has never before been invoked to force Americans to purchase a product as a condition of lawful residence in this country.
Of course, there were no microbes before Pasteur, he asserts, invoking supertime to make this less far-fetched: microbes did not exist in 1863's view of 1863 or before, but do exist in 1864's view of earlier times.
("Iraq, got that, now he gunning for Iran," he raps before invoking North Korea).
But now psychics must add a few riders before they invoke the voices of the dead, thanks to new consumer laws due to come into force.
