Ex-White House lawyer won’t testify before Congress

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday told former White House counsel Don McGahn to defy a subpoena to testify before Congress about the Russia investigation. A lawyer for McGahn later said he would follow the president's wishes and skip a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.

McGahn would “respect the President's instruction” and not testify, his lawyer said later, in a letter sent to the head of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

The committee is investigating whether Trump illegally obstructed the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. It wants to quiz McGahn after he figured prominently in a report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller about the Russia probe and whether Trump committed obstruction of justice.

But in a letter to the committee, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said McGahn should not appear due to both “constitutional immunity” and “in order to protect the prerogatives of the Office of the Presidency.”

Ex-White House counsel Donald McGahn (2nd R) waits for President Donald Trump to arrive for a reception and meeting with U.S. congressional leaders in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., January 23, 2017. /VCG Photo

The Justice Department has long held the opinion that close presidential advisers have “absolute immunity” from being compelled to testify before Congress about their work for the president. A federal judge rejected a similar argument in 2008 in a dispute over a subpoena for Harriet Miers, who was White House counsel to George W. Bush.

However, the committee's Democratic chairman, Jerrold Nadler, said that Trump was trying to block damaging testimony about his obstruction of justice.

“The President acted again and again – perhaps criminally – to protect himself from federal law enforcement. Don McGahn personally witnessed the most egregious of these acts. President Trump knows this. He clearly does not want the American people to hear firsthand about his alleged misconduct,” Nadler said in a statement.

He said his committee would meet on Tuesday morning and expected McGahn to show up and testify.

Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., conducts a House Judiciary Committee markup in Rayburn Building May 8, 2019, Washington, U.S. /VCG Photo

As Trump left the White House for a campaign event in Pennsylvania on Monday, he said the maneuver asking McGahn to defy a subpoena was “for the office of the presidency for future presidents.”

“I think it's a very important precedent,” he added. “And the attorneys say that they're not doing that for me, they're doing that for the office of the president. So we're talking about the future.”

Separately on Monday, a federal judge in Washington ruled against Trump in a financial records dispute, declaring the president cannot block a House subpoena for information from Mazars USA, a firm that has done accounting work for him and the Trump Organization.

(Cover photo: Ex-White House counsel Donald McGahn sits behind U.S. President Donald Trump as the president holds a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., June 21, 2018. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): AP ,Reuters