Trump continues to obstruct investigation
It hasn’t been a full nine months since former president Donald Trump left office, but he is still trying to manipulate his former aides. He instructed them to not comply with subpoenas from the special congressional committee investigating the Capitol riot.
“In a letter reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s lawyer asked that witnesses not provide testimony or documents related to their ‘official’ duties, and instead to invoke any immunities they might have ‘to the fullest extent permitted by law,’” according to a New York Times report.
The House committee ordered White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino Jr., adviser Stephen K. Bannon and Pentagon chief of staff Kash Patel, to sit for dispositions and provide other materials, as well as documents, that would be relevant to the investigation. They had until Thursday to respond.
But if Trump has it his way, the four will not cooperate with the investigation.
The former president’s efforts to stall the investigation — or at least make it as difficult as humanly possible — illustrates that he has not changed.
He has essentially declared war on the investigation and raised legal questions about how far the committee can go in compelling information from a former president and his advisers.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chairman of the select committee, has threatened criminal referral for witnesses who won’t comply with the subpoenas. He said he expects the full cooperation from the witnesses.
“It is unclear whether President Biden’s team will see fit to extend executive privilege — which shields a sitting president’s communications and deliberations from disclosure — to the former president,” the Times report said.
Our guess would be no. The White House and Justice Department already waived executive privilege for a group of witnesses that were asked to testify before the House Oversight and Senate Judiciary Committees, which are investigating the Jan. 6 attack, as well as the Trump administration’s efforts to subvert the presidential election results.