THURSDAY | 04.25.2019 | EXPRESS | 11
POLITICS | ANALYSIS
A constitutional collision President Trump declared Wednesday that he and his administration will battle House Democrats on all legal fronts after the special counsel’s Russia report, refusing to cooperate with subpoenas and appealing to the Supreme Court if Congress tries to impeach him. “I say it’s enough,” Trump said, adding that he “thought after two years we’d be finished with it.” As the two branches of government move closer to a constitutional collision, here are four battles to watch. (THE WASHINGTON POST/AP)
Financial details
Tax records
Security clearances
Impeachment proceedings
On Monday, Trump sued a member of Congress and Trump’s own accounting firm to try to prevent that firm from handing over a decade’s worth of his financial statements. A House oversight committee is investigating whether Trump inflated his assets or deflated them to get loans or avoid real estate taxes — which could constitute possible bank fraud.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will decide by May 6 whether to let the IRS hand over Trump’s tax records to the House Ways and Means Committee, which is looking at how the IRS audits presidents. Trump has refused to publicize his returns, as other presidents have, and is suing House democrats to try to block their release. The suit cited a Supreme Court case from 1880, but that ruling was overturned nearly a century ago.
The House oversight committee is also investigating whether the White House gave top-secret security clearances to people who may have had drug, criminal or financial problems. This investigation has the potential to catch Trump in a lie about whether he overrode security clearance experts to give his son-in-law Jared Kushner access to the nation’s biggest secrets.
The House committee that could launch impeachment proceedings wants to talk to one of the key players in the Mueller investigation, former White House counsel Donald McGahn. McGahn testified to Mueller that Trump tried to fire the special counsel, then told McGahn to lie about it. Trump suggested Wednesday that he would ask the Supreme Court to intervene if Democrats move to impeach him.
How this could escalate even more: The accounting firm is willing to hand over the documents, but the ensuing court fight could take so long that Trump or key members of Congress are out of office by the time it’s settled. What legal experts say: “Congress can and should win eventually in the lower court, but that’s not the end of the story,” said Lisa Kern Griffin, a law professor at Duke University. “Some of this could go all the way up to the Supreme Court. It can move faster than ordinary cases, but it is not going to move with lightning speed. … And the clock favors one side of the equation here.” And that’s Trump’s.
How this could escalate: This is likely to turn into a court fight over the meaning of the law that says the IRS “shall” turn over tax records to Congress. Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., thinks he is on solid footing here because the law is a century old. Congress could also vote to hold Mnuchin in contempt and even try to put him in jail. What legal experts say: The effort to block the returns’ release was described to The Post by legal experts as a delay tactic — one of many that’s again aimed at running out the clock.
How this could escalate: Congress is working with a whistleblower and wants to talk to her former boss at the White House, Carl Kline. It subpoenaed Kline, but the White House told him to ignore the subpoena and Kline has listened. Next, Congress could vote to hold Kline in contempt, which could eventually lead to daily fines or the threat of jail time until he talks to lawmakers. What legal experts say: In the past, Griffin noted, both sides usually worked on a compromise, determining some limited points of testimony or to agree to provide certain information. The Trump administration, though, has shown little interest in that.
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How this could escalate: Trump is considering telling McGahn not to testify by exerting executive privilege over those conversations. But McGahn is the former White House counsel — he does not work for the White House anymore. What legal experts say: Some have argued that Trump lost his ability to exert executive privilege the day he decided not to use it when McGahn (and other aides) testified to Mueller. As for asking the Supreme Court to intervene, legal experts said Trump showed a misunderstanding of the Constitution. Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor, accused Trump of “idiocy.”
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
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WASHINGTONPOST.COM MORNING MIX
Citing Trump, Iowa lawmaker leaves the GOP Iowa’s longest-serving Republican legislator, state Rep. Andy McKean, ditched the GOP on Tuesday as he offered a searing renunciation of President Trump, saying he could no longer support Trump as the party’s standard-bearer because of his “unacceptable behavior” and “reckless spending.” McKean revealed that he would join the Democratic Party, a decision he described as “very difficult” after spending nearly a half-century as a registered Republican and 26 years in the legislature. But ultimately, he said, “I feel as a Republican that I need to be able to support the standard-bearer of our party.” And “unfortunately,” he said, he could not bring himself to support Trump. “Unacceptable behavior should be called out for what it is,” he said during a news conference at the Iowa Statehouse in Des Moines, “and Americans of all parties should insist on something far better in the leader of their country and the free world.” From Kansas to New Jersey, a slow succession of state lawmakers and officials, largely in suburban districts that have become less red, has both startled and appeased constituents by crossing the aisle, oftentimes citing Trump’s rhetoric, policies and a disagreement with their party’s responses to his behavior. MEAGAN FLYNN
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