The idea that House committees can continue to investigate Trump is fundamental to both those who believe that impeachment should begin immediately and those who are convinced the better option is to walk through the evidence one more time under some term that means impeachment, but isn’t impeachment. But those in both the Now and the Later camps should be aware that when it comes to evidence, Trump is determined to turn off the taps. Obstruction is now the rule.
On Tuesday, Trump called the Washington Post to say that he wouldn’t cooperate with Congress on requests for documents or testimony. According to Trump, now that the Mueller report is in, allowing anyone to carry out any additional investigation is “unnecessary.” Trump followed this statement with multiple tweets on Wednesday in which he claimed that he “won” the Mueller report.
As Trump made clear in a his call to the Post, he doesn’t just intend to withhold documents. He intends to prevent anyone at the White House—and anyone who ever was at the White House—from appearing before Congress. That policy has already been demonstrated with Trump’s order to former White House personnel security director Carl Kline telling him to ignore a congressional subpoena.
But really, the policy was in effect before the Mueller report appeared. Since Democrats took control of the House in January, the Trump White House has not provided a single page of documentation or a single official to provide testimony, before the House.
Trump made it clear that this bad policy absolutely extends to testimony by former White House counsel Don McGahn. Democrats would like to question McGahn about statements he made to the special counsel that are cited in the report, including statements that Trump told him to have Robert Mueller fired. Trump and his legal team have disputed McGahn’s statements, and Trump intends to prevent Congress from asking the former White House attorney to give a definitive statement.
It’s not as if Trump was cooperative during the special counsel investigation. As the Mueller report made clear, even setting aside instances in which Trump tried to simply end the investigation by firing those involved, he lied, suborned perjury, tampered with witnesses, and withheld information. But that was just a preview.
Trump’s order to Kline isn’t a one-off challenge to congressional authority. It’s an extension of the same unlimited executive position that has Trump refusing to hand over his tax forms and his financial documents. And Congress’ ability to do anything about it is very, very limited.
Previous attempts to get the courts to intervene to enforce congressional subpoenas have ended with the matter being tossed back for resolution between the congressional and executive branches. Those occasions may have ended in compromise, but Trump has no intention of compromising, especially when every release of information walks him one step closer to formal impeachment proceedings.
Trump has every intention, and every incentive, to openly obstruct any effort at investigation by either the House or the Senate. Those concerned that initiating impeachment would interfere with further investigation are missing an important fact: There won’t be any further investigation.
Or at least, there won’t be any further investigation that involves soliciting testimony from anyone associated with the Trump White House, or Trump transition team, or Trump campaign. There won’t be any documents. What there will be is lots of lawsuits and challenges designed to delay any action and give Trump a chance to rant.
And through all of this, major media outlets will report it in exactly the terms that Trump wants: as a partisan dispute, as Trump refusing “Democratic subpoenas” rather than as a challenge to the constitutional role of Congress.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that attempting to investigate Trump is pointless. Because refusing to obey congressional subpoenas would make an excellent basis for impeachment, all on its own. In fact, that’s exactly what one of the articles of impeachment drafted against Richard Nixon was all about.
Just so long as everyone recognizes that when it comes to actual information about Trump’s crimes, all the normal doors are closed.
