The White House, however, is not saying that they have legal grounds to refuse some particular request Congress has made. They dont even make a claim of executive privilege. They say instead that the entire inquiry is unfair, and therefore they can reject all of it.
If Congress cannot exercise its power of oversight or its power of impeachment, it essentially means the president doesnt have to answer to anyone but the political process, which only comes around every four years, Murray says. And that essentially makes the president a king.
Even Richard Nixon fought with Congress over particular subpoenas, such as for the Oval Office tapes that revealed his guilt, but didnt claim that he was immune from honoring the entire impeachment process.
The fact that these claims are being made by the White House counsel, who is supposed to be the lawyer for the presidency, demonstrates how everyone around Trump is implicated in his corruption.
The letters repeated assertions that the House is violating Trumps civil liberties and due process rights are laughable, because the Constitution says nothing about the particular processes by which the House has to carry out impeachment. The House can establish any rules it wants.
Furthermore, the privileges the letter demands, such as the president being able to cross-examine witnesses, are a matter for the trial phase of impeachment, which happens in the Senate. If Trump wants all that, he should take it up with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
So will Republicans be standing up to the White House in the face of this outrageous assault on the very idea of checks and balances? You remember, the ones who cried Tyranny! whenever Barack Obama signed an executive order, the ones who shouted Stonewalling! if the Obama administration resisted a single document request from Congress, the ones who intoned about the Constitution and the rule of law with such seriousness when they demanded Bill Clintons removal from office?
If they wanted, they could say that they dont think Trump should be impeached and hope that if he is hell be acquitted by the Senate, but nonetheless they insist that of course he has to respect the powers Congress is granted by the Constitution, because they believe in that Constitution and the system it created. ...