President Donald Trump knows he has fierce Democratic adversaries in Congress. Taken together, the court rulings eviscerate the administration's muscular view of executive power just as the impeachment inquiry against Trump accelerates.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump knows he has fierce Democratic adversaries in Congress. But there is also ample push-back from the Judiciary branch, where black-robed judges who sit in courtrooms just blocks from the Capitol and in New York City have repudiated his view of executive power.
The administration at least temporarily lost its bid to shield former White House counsel Don McGahn from being questioned by Congress. It argued unsuccessfully to withhold secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. And lawyers for the president have tried to keep the president's financial records away from Congress. In each instances, judges have overruled them.
Story continuesOther administrations have tangled with Congress, of course, and been forced to provide documents. But the rapid succession of losses in such high-profile cases has been startling, along with the colorful, sometimes cutting, language of the judges who have ruled against Trump. In October, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell told a Justice Department lawyer that though she was a well-respected attorney, her arguments in a case over whether the department had to produce grand jury testimony from Mueller's investigation were “extraordinary" — and not in a good way.
Part of what's unusual about the spate of defeats is that administrations have tended to eventually resolve disputes through compromise, but that has not been this White House's style, said Joshua Blackman, a South Texas College of law professor.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Justin Amash: Dems 'missed an opportunity' to 'persuade people' about Trump impeachmentAmash tweeted Thursday that "Democrats made a strategic error in not engaging more with" Jonathan Turley, who was the sole witness called by the GOP.
Read more »
Donald Trump won't send a White House lawyer to the next impeachment hearingDonald Trump and the White House have consistently rejected invitations to participate in what they call unfair impeachment hearings.
Read more »
London Mayor says Trump appears to care only about white AmericaThe Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, says Trump's divisive rhetoric gives the impression the US President cares only about white Americans
Read more »
Leaders learn the hard way that Trump will be Trump at NATO meetingAt the outset of NATO's 70th anniversary meeting, which was meant to promote the unity of the alliance, no one doubted President Donald Trump's ability to disrupt, and he didn't disappoint, taking his tactics to a new level.
Read more »