The idea that Donald Trump is responsible for anything other than posing as a successful businessman on a reality TV show is frightening enough, but Trump’s latest moves to stonewall Congress and refuse to comply with those in charge of oversight over is presidency is truly stunning.
DOJ official John Gore will defy Congress by refusing appear for a deposition with the Oversight Cmte., who wanted to question Gore about his role with the citizenship census question. His refusal may result in an effort to hold him in contempt. https://t.co/k0LdPekBQv
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 24, 2019
On Thursday, reports said that John Gore, a top official in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, openly refused to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify about the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020Â census. In fact, Trump’s hand-picked Attorney General William Barr instructed him not to do so.
According to The Daily Beast:
‘John Gore, a top official in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, will not appear for a deposition scheduled for tomorrow with the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, according to a letter the Justice Department sent the committee chairman on April 24.’
Trump says he is opposed to White House aides testifying to Congress, deepening power struggle with Hill https://t.co/Yy1hOlF1om
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 24, 2019
Trump’s latest strategy on the numerous investigations into his business practices, granting of security clearances, and campaign finance violations (among others) is to simply ignore it. Lately, he’s mentioned repeatedly that he had the option to invoke executive privilege on his aides’ testimonies in the Mueller investigation but didn’t. Now, he says he’s learned his lesson.
Trump told The Washington Post:
‘There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan…I don’t want people testifying to a party, because that is what they’re doing if they do this…I allowed my lawyers and all the people to go and testify to Mueller…they testified for so many hours. They have all of that information that’s been given.’
Trump’s aides testified in the Mueller investigation. That has nothing to do with an investigation into the addition of the citizenship question to the census. If Trump’s strategy now is to simply disallow any oversight of his administration, we’ve officially entered the lawless dictator phase of this new nightmare.
Just this week, AG instructed DOJ official to not comply with an Oversight subpoena for his deposition over citizenship question on census. WH said Kline shouldn’t comply with security clearance subpoena. Trump Org sued Cummings over subpoena to accounting firm for Trump finances https://t.co/YUHMayS8Pl
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 25, 2019
Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) says that Gore is still required by law to testify.
‘This is a massive, unprecedented, and growing pattern of obstruction. Yesterday, President Trump declared to the entire country that he would obstruct Congress and order all White House officials to defy lawful subpoenas from Congress.  Today, the Trump Administration went even further by expanding this policy to employees at federal agencies—even when the subpoenas are bipartisan and supported by Republican Members of Congress.’
"The subpoena is ridiculous," President Trump says, criticizing House Democrats who subpoenaed former White House counsel Don McGahn.
"I say it's enough! Get back to infrastructure, get back to cutting taxes, get back to lowering drug prices," he adds https://t.co/Y8faLGTTVo pic.twitter.com/UPsTJsGLmV
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 24, 2019
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
