White House must comply with impeachment subpoenas, rules US court

A federal judge ruled, on November 25, that former White House counsel Donald McGahn must appear before Congress in the impeachment investigation against United States President Donald Trump. The ruling is considered a setback for Trump, who has been trying to keep his top aides from testifying.

'Presidents are not kings'

Court’s ruling said the contention of the Department of Justice (DOJ) that the presidential aides enjoy absolute testimonial immunity at the president’s discretion conflicts with core constitutional norms. “Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings,” Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in his decision.

Judge Jackson, in his scathing conclusion, said that the United States of America has a government of laws and not of men.

“When the issue in dispute is whether a government official has the duty to respond to a subpoena that a duly authorized committee of the House of Representatives has issued pursuant to its Article I authority, the official’s defiance unquestionably inflicts a cognizable injury on Congress, and thereby, substantially harms the national interest as well,” wrote the judge.

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Pelosi welcomes the decision

Speaker of House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, welcomed court’s decision calling it another resounding ruling and reaffirmation of the Congress’s constitutional authority to conduct oversight on behalf of the American people. “As the Courts have made clear, there are no special privileges for information unrelated to the President’s official duties, but squarely related to Congress’s need for legislation and oversight,” said Pelosi in a statement.

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McGahn, a star witness in Mueller investigations, had revealed that he was called by the US president at his home on the night of June 17, 2017. McGahn was allegedly directed by Trump to call the Justice Department and ask them to remove Mueller citing conflict of interests. In October this year, a US district court judge had ordered Trump administration to hand over the unredacted copy of Mueller report to House Judiciary Committee.

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