Published by

Trump Pushes Back Against House Investigations

President Donald Trump listens during his meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.

Andrew Desiderio, congressional reporter for POLITICO covering investigations and oversight, discusses President Trump's resistance to House Democrats' investigations and subpoenas. The president said that he will be "fighting all subpoenas" that House committees issue, and White House officials have refused to testify, a move that House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said amounted to "a massive, unprecedented and growing pattern of obstruction."

"White Houses never like to cooperate with Congressional requests," says @desiderioDC. "What’s happening now is that it’s reached a new level of harshness, bitterness. We see POTUS suing the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee to block the release of his financial records."
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) April 26, 2019

"What [Mueller] is saying is that the President can have more than one incentive to get re-elected in 2020," says @desiderioDC. "He could have the incentive of evading possible criminal charges... the statute of limitations for these obstruction of justice charges is 5 years."
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) April 26, 2019