Trump appointees such as Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, AG Barr, and others may be facing an awful quandary as subpoenas are raining down on them. So far, they’ve been mostly ignored and resisted. But will they be litigated? Jennifer Rubin relays the opinion of Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe:
“I think the Intelligence Committee is doing exactly what the situation calls for by treating the refusals by [Attorney General William P.] Barr and [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo to let people testify as obstruction of Congress plain and simple,” he says. “If the Trump cabinet members or other officials want to go down the path of the third Article of Impeachment against Richard Nixon, that’s a choice the Democratic committee chairs are sensibly leaving to them. The chairs would play into the hands of the stonewalling Trump administration by taking Trump officials to court to seek orders compelling testimony or document production or to enforce subpoenas.” He concludes, “The days for those litigation strategies are now long since behind us.” [WaPo]
And I see CNN is running a headline:
White House subpoenaed
No information will be shared by the Trump Administration in response, if recent history is any teacher. Given how Trump flaps his lips in front of microphones, I’m not even sure that a subpoena is required to secure the information necessary to impeach and possibly convict Trump of abuse and even treason.
But officials connected with Trump need to think about this: What if Trump is impeached and convicted? Depending on the articles of impeachment, there could be a great deal of collateral damage for officials in violation of subpoenas and laws. Consider Secretary Mnuchin, who refused a subpoena for Trump’s tax returns in the face of a statute stating
Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.
He assumed a level of discretion not authorized by this or any other statute, saying the request served no legislative purpose. Now, suppose Trump is thrust unceremoniously out of office, and then Trump’s tax returns are substantially different than advertised by Trump. Does a vengeful Congress dump his damp ass in jail? Can they?
They can certainly censure him, making it clear that he behaved in a dishonorable fashion. Rational people, concerned for the nation, will snub him at dinner parties.
But this is the question that should be burning in the heads of many of the officials who have, or may, receive a subpoena which they’ve been instructed to ignore. Obeying the unlawful orders of their superiors could end poorly for them.
