That matters. While the Trump administration has repeatedly taken unprecedented legal positions to delay and stonewall Congress, it previously recognized, however tacitly, the legitimacy of impeachment as a constitutional remedy. Even when it prevented witnesses like former White House counsel Don McGahn from testifying, it provided a fig leaf of justification—executive privilege or attorney-client privilege, for example—thereby implicitly acknowledging the oversight prerogatives of Congress and its power to issue subpoenas. That changed on Tuesday. [...]
While the letter is signed by a lawyer and occasionally uses legal terms, such as “due process,” it is a political document, not a legal one. The complaints that the administration has with the impeachment inquiry are not legal reasons that would excuse a failure to comply with the inquiry. Trump is not going to court. He is not claiming privilege. He has simply declared that the usual rules don’t apply to him. [...]
Both parties have publicly opposed this unconstitutional expansion of presidential power in the past. Not so long ago, when Republicans were arguing for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, they cited President Richard Nixon’s defiance of congressional oversight as a significant justification for his impeachment. Lindsey Graham, then a congressman from South Carolina, made a cogent case for why that article of impeachment was necessary against Nixon and why it was warranted for Clinton. But unless 20 Senate Republicans vote to remove Trump, he will remain in office and his noncompliance with Congress will be unpunished.
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