Cummings warns Trump officials snubbing Congress to 'carefully' consider 'their own legal interests'

After Donald Trump promised to combat every single congressional subpoena, House Oversight Chair Elijah Cummings put witnesses on notice Wednesday that he ain’t playing. “These employees and their personal attorneys should think very carefully about their own legal interests rather than being swept up in the obstruction schemes of the Trump administration,” Cummings wrote in a statement.

The war erupted Wednesday after the Justice Department refused to make an agency official available for a deposition regarding an investigation into the citizenship question the administration is seeking to add to the 2020 census. 

Cummings has grown increasingly frustrated over the White House’s efforts to stonewall any and all oversight efforts by House Democrats. Tuesday night, he reiterated that the White House hadn’t produced “a single piece of paper or a single witness” requested by his committee. On Wednesday, he told Reuters, “We cannot afford to allow our president to be above the law.” Finally, he issued a statement decrying the administration’s “massive unprecedented, and growing pattern of obstruction.”

”Both President Trump and Attorney General Barr are now openly ordering federal employees to ignore congressional subpoenas and simply not show up—without any assertion of valid legal privilege,” he wrote, regarding the refusal of Justice Department official John Gore to sit for a deposition.

Check out the rest of the statement below.

Just in from @RepCummings, a pretty stark warning to members of the administration:

"These employees and their personal attorneys should think very carefully about their own legal interests rather than being swept up in the obstruction schemes of the Trump Administration." pic.twitter.com/Wgj9C0TCqt

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) April 24, 2019