Trump erects a stone wall around House inquiries
Donald Trump has spent much of his presidency chafing at the restraints on his powers. With a fairly limited opportunity for legislative gains, he has looked for what he can do unilaterally. What levers he can pull. What buttons he can push. What glass he can break.
He has found these things in trade, immigration, foreign policy and other areas where congresses have ceded presidents considerable autonomy.
But now, with Democrats holding a majority in the House and the Mueller report showing how even his own appointees have resisted his most reck- less behavior, Trump is on an even more destructive course.
This time, the president is refusing to recognize Congress as a coequal branch of government with a constitutionally mandated responsibility of executive branch oversight.
This is being done through the refusal to cooperate with legitimate subpoenas and requests for information. Among other things, Trump or his administration has:
❚ Refused to provide the House Ways and Means Committee with Trump tax records despite a law that says “the (Treasury secretary) shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request.”
❚ Sued House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings for issuing a valid subpoena to Mazars, a Trump accounting firm.
❚ Refused to comply with an Oversight Committee subpoena to depose former White House personnel Director Carl Kline about the issuance of security clearances over the objections of professional staff.
❚ Rejected an Oversight Committee subpoena of a Justice Department official regarding the 2020 Census.
❚ Vowed to fight a House Judiciary Committee subpoena of former White House counsel Don McGahn, who emerged as a central figure in the obstruction-of-justice report by special counsel Robert Mueller.
It’s safe to say that if the Obama administration had reacted this way to requests for information and testimony by the GOP-controlled House, Republicans would have been apoplectic.
Now it’s up to them, and not just Democrats, to push back against Trump’s multipronged efforts at resistance, which have little basis in law.
The stonewall strategy appears to be based on two highly cynical calculations: that the Trump administration can simply stall until the end of the current Congress, and that it controls the enforcement mechanism (the Justice Department).
Ultimately, though, the biggest loser is American democracy. The Founding Fathers did not intend Congress to be the president’s fan club. They saw it as the most vital branch of government.
They put Congress in the first article of the Constitution and gave it the most sweeping powers. They saw it as vital check against presidential overreach. They would certainly be appalled by what Trump is doing now.