President Trump is preparing to fight a subpoena of former White House counsel Don McGahn by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., according to a new report.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that White House lawyers are planning on asserting executive privilege over any testimony by administration witnesses subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee.
“Mr. McGahn is a critical witness to many of the alleged instances of obstruction of justice and other misconduct described in the Mueller report,” Nadler said in a statement released Monday on the subpoena.
“His testimony will help shed further light on the President’s attacks on the rule of law, and his attempts to cover up those actions by lying to the American people and requesting others do the same,” he said.
Trump’s potential assertion of executive privilege would likely spawn a protracted court battle over McGahn and other potential administration officials’ testimony.
McGahn was a key figure in the Mueller report released last week. The report mentioned him over 150 times, including the claim that McGahn resisted an order from Trump to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, who was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The Mueller report found no collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, but the report did mention 10 different potential cases of obstruction of justice which House Judiciary wants to explore by subpoenaing administration officials.
