The White House today blocked former White House Counsel Don McGahn from complying with Democrats’ subpoena for him to turn over documents related to the Russia investigation.
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone says the man who formerly held his position does not have the legal rights to the documents Democrats in Congress are demanding he produce.
McGahn’s attorney sent a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, outlining that acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney directed McGahn not to hand over the documents the committee subpoenaed.
‘The White House records remain legally protected from disclosure under long-standing constitutional principles, because they implicate significant executive branch confidentiality interests and executive privilege,’ Cipollone said in a letter to McGahn’s attorney, William Burck.
Burck said that his client still owes some obligations to Trump and White House from his time as the most senior attorney for the president, and said Congress and the White House are making contradictory demands of his client.
McGhan served as White House counsel from the time Trump was inaugurated to October 2018.
‘Where co-equal branches of government are making contradictory demands on Mr. McGahn concerning the same set of documents, the appropriate response for Mr. McGahn is to maintain the status quo unless and until the Committee and the Executive Branch can reach an accommodation,’ Burck wrote in his Tuesday letter to Nadler.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday that the Russia investigation is “case closed,” a line delivered earlier in the day by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The White House’s stance increases pressure on McGahn, a crucial witness both to Mueller and to House Democrats investigating abuse of power and obstruction of justice, to ultimately decide whether to defy Trump and cooperate with the committee or hold the administration’s line.
Democrats are likely to object to the White House’s intervention in light of its other ongoing efforts to thwart their abilities to investigate the president and his administration.
They could still choose to initiate contempt of Congress proceedings against McGahn, a stinging punishment for a lawyer working in private practice that could shape how he proceeds in the fight over documents.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said today that those and other steps to block access to information requested by Congress amounted to obstruction of justice by the president.
She compared his actions to those of President Richard Nixon, whose refusal to satisfy House subpoenas ultimately became fodder for their own impeachment article in the House Judiciary Committee before he resigned.
“Trump is goading us to impeach him,” Pelosi said at a Cornell University event in Manhattan. “That’s what he is doing, every single day he is just, like, taunting, taunting, taunting. Because he knows that it would be very divisive in the country. But he doesn’t really care; he just wants to solidify his base.”
Pelosi said she is pushing her caucus not to take up the debate, but to continue to try to line up the facts and build support among American voters.