President Donald Trump is expected to instruct his former White House counsel Don McGahn to ignore a congressional subpoena to appear before a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, a person briefed on the matter told The New York Times on Monday.
The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed McGahn, one of the most important eyewitnesses cited in the Mueller report to Trump’s attempts to obstruct the Russia investigation.
Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler,D-N.Y., said last week his panel would vote to hold McGahn in contempt of Congress if he does not appear, which would likely result in the House turning to a federal court to try to enforce its subpoena.
However, if McGahn defies the White House and shows up, he could not only harm his own career in Republican politics but also put his law firm, which is closely affiliated with the GOP, at risk of having the president urge his allies to withhold their business.
McGahn has already defied the committee’s subpoena once.
It called on him to hand over documents he shared with special counsel Robert Mueller that the committee said were relevant to its own investigation into potential obstruction of justice and abuses of power, but the White House told McGahn not to comply, and Trump later asserted executive privilege over the material.
Democrats say Trump’s privilege claim is illegitimate due to the public nature of the material, while the Justice Department insists the president’s closest advisers have “absolute immunity” from congressional subpoenas.
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