Analysis: It wants to block him from testifying, but it’s already waived its right to executive privilege twice. How the Trump White House shot itself in the foot on Don McGahn.
By Aaron Blake Aaron Blake Senior political reporter, writing for The Fix Email Bio Follow April 24 at 1:48 PM Former White House counsel Donald McGahn is the star player in the recently released Mueller report, and now he’s the star player in what promises to be the first of plenty of high-profile battles between the White House and House Democrats over executive privilege.
Trump’s interest in transparency apparently has its limits, as we’re now finding out with his decision to fight McGahn’s further testimony to the Democratic-controlled House. But experts say the dual waivers of executive privilege severely complicate any further attempt to invoke it. Steven Schwinn, another expert on executive privilege at the John Marshall Law School, said he sees “no basis” for the executive privilege claim.
Mark Rozell, an executive privilege expert at George Mason University, said it was conceivable that some kind of executive privilege could be upheld — perhaps by arguing the White House’s previous waivers came on a report for which it assumed there would be greater privacy protections than there would be in public testimony.
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