Donald Trump will never build the Great Wall he envisioned on this country’s southern border, but his lawyers and minions are erecting the largest stonewall against Congressional oversight since Nixon’s presidency. In a scolding letter to Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), White House attorneys have said that the administration will simply reject some 81 subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee that he chairs.
The reason offered for this blanket refusal to cooperate sounds much like a Trump tweet. “Congressional investigations are intended to obtain information to aid in evaluating potential legislation,” huffed the president’s lawyers, “not to harass political opponents or to pursue an unauthorized ‘do-over’ of exhaustive law enforcement investigations conducted by the Department of Justice”
Requests for information from the House Oversight Committee, the House Intelligence Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, and the Senate Intelligence Committee have all met with roughly the same arrogant attitude — as if the executive branch has no obligation to provide any information at all to Congress. Such dismissive responses represent a profound violation of the Constitutional order.
View the complete May 15 article by Joe Conason on the National Memo website here.