When the president goes to war with Congress over a subpoena, time is typically on the president’s side.
In most cases, Congress seeks information held by the president himself, or by one of the president’s allies within the executive branch. Thus, until a court specifically orders the executive to turn over that information, the president can resist the subpoena simply by doing nothing. During the Obama administration, for example, Congress sought Justice Department documents in a 2011 subpoena. Though Congress eventually won the court fight to uncover those documents, the first court decision ordering the administration to comply with the subpoena didn’t come until 2016.
Which brings us to Trump v. Committee on Oversight and Reform — and, specifically, the role of the accounting firm Mazars USA in that case. Mazars is not the hero America deserves, but it may be the hero we need. And it could become this hero simply by refusing to play along with President Donald Trump’s massive resistance to congressional oversight.
View the complete May 10 article by Ian Millhiser on the ThinkProgress website here.