Donald Trump thru his White lawyer that he will NOT allow ANYof his staff to answer questions or provide information to Congress thru House Committee’s about his action’s or their actions operating within his admin….
White House lawyers plan to tell attorneys for administration witnesses called by the House that they will be asserting executive privilege over their testimony, according to two officials familiar with internal plans who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In his interview with The Post, Trump maintained that the White House Counsel’s Office has not “made a final, final decision” about whether it will formally assert executive privilege and try to block congressional testimony. But he said he opposes cooperation with House Democrats, who he claimed are trying to score political points against him.
“I don’t want people testifying to a party, because that is what they’re doing if they do this,” Trump said.
The president said Democrats should be satisfied with what McGahn and other officials told Mueller, calling his decision to allow them to meet with federal investigators an act of transparency that made further congressional cooperation unreasonable.
“I allowed my lawyers and all the people to go and testify to Mueller — and you know how I feel about that whole group of people that did the Mueller report,” Trump said. “I was so transparent; they testified for so many hours. They have all of that information that’s been given.”
“I fully understood that at the beginning. I had my choice,” Trump added of his decision to allow his aides to testify as part of Mueller’s probe. “I could have taken the absolute opposite route.”
Legal experts said that a White House effort to assert executive privilege over possible testimony by McGahn and other former and current aides who spoke to the special counsel will face legal challenges.
“It seems to me executive privilege was waived when McGahn was permitted to give testimony and to be interviewed by special counsel Mueller,” said former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste. “I don’t see how the White House can assert executive privilege with something that has already been revealed. To use the Watergate expression, ‘You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.’”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that the panel is specifically seeking McGahn’s testimony related to subjects described in Mueller’s report, which is now public in a redacted form.
“As such, the moment for the White House to assert some privilege to prevent this testimony from being heard has long since passed,” Nadler said in a statement.
McGahn was mentioned more than 150 times in Mueller’s report and told investigators about how the president pressured him to oust the special counsel and then pushed him to publicly deny the episode…..
Several advisers added that they expect Mueller’s conclusions to cost Trump few votes.
“I don’t think there was a whole lot of information that was new that had not been reported on previously or discussed in a public setting,” said Raj Shah, a former White House spokesman who now advises the campaign. “It almost seemed like the summary of the last two years of the public debate. I don’t think this report gives any momentum to those who want to see the president impeached.”
Shah added that Trump voters are unlikely to punish the president for fighting back against Mueller’s probe. “The broad notion that the president was disgruntled with and unhappy with an investigation targeting his legitimacy out of the gate — they afford him the right to be upset about it,” he said.
Mueller’s finding that there was no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia has now become a key talking point heading into Trump’s reelection bid, with his political apparatus planning to target both the investigators and the news media that covered the investigation.