Trump Administration Directs More Former Officials to Break the Law

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Late last month, the House Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to former White House communications director Hope Hicks and former deputy White House counsel Annie Donaldson for documents and testimony. On Tuesday, the Trump administration directed Hicks and Donaldson to defy the subpoenas. In other words, they were directed to break federal law. The move is not surprising considering the administration’s growing disregard for the law as it seeks to stonewall the efforts of Democratic lawmakers to conduct oversight. “We’re fighting all the subpoenas,” Trump announced to reporters in April.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was not pleased with the development, but noted that Hicks has already agreed to turn over “some documents … related to her time working for the Trump Campaign.”

“The President has no lawful basis for preventing these witnesses from complying with our request,” he added. “We will continue to seek reasonable accommodations on these and all our discovery requests and intend to press these issues when we obtain the testimony of both Ms. Hicks and Ms. Donaldson.”

Link to tweet

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The White House is arguing the documents requested by the committee fall under executive privilege. Nadler doesn’t think so. “Federal law makes clear that the documents we requested — documents that left the White House months ago — are no longer covered by executive privilege, if they ever were.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-white-house-hope-hicks-break-the-law-844179/

[Karadeniz]

1. The presidency is basically public property. I don't see why any people or documents, classified

national security excepted, should qualify as executive privilege.

[procon]

2. The President has the solemn duty to uphold

the law. Not Trump, he has declared himself to be above the law, and now he claims the imperial power to determine which laws will either be followed or ignored.