The Trump administration will fight efforts by Democrats in Congress to subpoena former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify, it has been reported.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler of New York, subpoenaed McGahn as Democratic party leaders moved to deepen their investigation of President Trump while bottling up talk among their rank-and-file of impeaching him.
But the Trump administration will oppose this and other requests by Democratic-led committees in the House to compel other current and former aides to testify, according to The Washington Post.
White House lawyers will tell the attorneys representing potential witnesses that they will be asserting executive privilege over their testimony.
Donald McGahn, the former White House counsel, has been subpoenaed by the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee
That could ignite a legal battle that would be tied up in the courts.
McGahn is considered a central figure in the report submitted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.
Mueller’s prosecutors interviewed McGahn for some 30 hours, and McGahn’s name is mentioned 150 times in the report.
McGahn would be a star witness for any such case because he refused Trump’s demand to set Mueller’s firing in motion, according to the report.
Having McGahn testify before Congress would be a significant development, especially given Democrats’ eagerness to investigate the president for alleged crimes.
Nadler was one of six powerful committee leaders making their case on a conference call Monday with other House Democrats late in the day that they are effectively investigating Trump-related matters ranging from potential obstruction to his personal and business taxes.
Jerrold Nadler (above), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, says Congress should investigate Trump-related matters ranging from potential obstruction to his personal and business taxes
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged divided Democrats to focus on fact-finding rather than the prospect of any impeachment proceedings after the damning details of Mueller’s report.
Nadler and the other chairmen made clear they believe Trump did obstruct justice, according to people on the call who weren’t authorized to discuss it by name.
Sources close to McGahn told the Post that the former White House counsel was ‘following the process’ and coordinating his next steps with the administration.
‘He’s not eager to testify,’ a person close to McGahn told the Post.
‘He’s not reluctant. He got a subpoena. It compels him to testify.
‘But there are some countervailing legal reasons that might prevent that.
‘He doesn’t want to be in contempt of Congress; nor does he want to be in contempt of his ethical obligations and legal obligations as a former White House official.’
McGahn would be a star witness for any such case because he refused President Trump’s demand to set Mueller’s firing in motion, according to the Mueller report
Trump has reportedly blasted McGahn in private, telling advisers that the former White House counsel was disloyal.
McGahn was barely on speaking terms with Trump by the time he left the White House last fall.
But Mueller’s report reveals the president may owe his former top lawyer a debt of gratitude.
In one striking scene, Mueller recounts how Trump called McGahn twice at home and directed him to set Mueller’s firing in motion.
McGahn recoiled and threatened to resign instead.
Mueller concluded that McGahn and others effectively halted Trump’s efforts to influence the investigation, prompting some White House officials and outside observers to call him an unsung hero in the effort to protect the president.
According to the special counsel report, McGahn responded to the president’s request by calling his personal lawyer and his chief of staff, driving to the White House, packing up his belongings and preparing to submit his letter of resignation.
He told then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus that the president had asked him to ‘do crazy s—.’
Mueller’s report shows there were a handful of other aides who rebuffed orders and suggestions from the president, helping save him from the consequences.
Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski resisted an effort by Trump to convince Attorney General Jeff Sessions to un-recuse himself from the investigation and to limit the scope of Mueller’s probe.
McGahn’s name is mentioned 150 times in the report submitted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller (seen above)
Priebus and McGahn repeatedly resisted Trump efforts to force out Sessions so that Trump could replace him and install a new person to oversee Mueller’s work.
McGahn also tried in other ways to keep the president in line, advising him that he should not communicate directly with the Department of Justice to avoid the perception or reality of political interference in law enforcement and reminding him that their conversations were not protected by attorney-client privilege.
Trump responded by questioning McGahn’s tendency to take notes and draft memoranda outlining his advice to the president for the historical record.
‘Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes,’ Trump said, according to Mueller’s report.
The special counsel said McGahn responded that he keeps notes ‘because he is a ‘real lawyer’ and explained that notes create a record and are not a bad thing.
Exchanges like those appear to have led Mueller to conclude that McGahn was ‘a credible witness with no motive to lie or exaggerate given the position he held in the White House.’
Once reports of McGahn threatening to resign became public in the news media, the president demanded that McGahn dispute the reports and asked him why he had told Mueller about it and why he had taken notes of their conversations.
McGahn refused to back down, the report said.
Nadler’s announcement was one of several leadership moves aimed at calming a struggle among Democrats to speak with one voice about what to do in light of Mueller’s startling account of Trump’s repeated efforts to fire him, shut down his probe and get allies to lie.