House counsel warns of ‘gun battle’ in fight for Trump info – By Todd Ruger (Roll Call) / Jan 3 2020
Letter said there’s no case that comes anywhere close to saying Congress cannot go to court to enforce its investigatory powers
A federal appeals court in Washington heard warnings Friday that how they rule in the House Judiciary Committee’s legal fights for information from the Trump administration could spark an avalanche of congressional lawsuits, or even a potential gunfight between the House sergeant at arms and the FBI security detail for Attorney General William Barr.
Two separate panels of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard nearly three hours of oral argument on two committee cases related to former Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Both were filed months before the House voted to impeach President Donald Trump on his dealings with Ukraine.
The committee filed a lawsuit to force former White House Counsel Don McGahn to testify about episodes from Mueller’s report. In the other case, the committee wants access to secret grand jury materials from that same investigation.
Lower courts have ruled that McGahn must testify before the committee and the Justice Department must give the grand jury material to the committee. The D.C. Circuit panels can now decide at any time whether those rulings were right.
In the McGahn case, Hashim Moopan of the Justice Department urged the judges to rule that they must stay out of what was essentially a purely political fight. The House contends that Trump is conducting broad obstruction of Congress, while Trump contends the House is conducting an illegitimate investigation into a president.
A ruling that the House can go to the courts to enforce a subpoena against executive branch officials such as McGahn means that the court will have to decide similar cases over and over, Moopan said, and the public will wonder why the courts are deciding who is right.
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