WH counsel’s letter to Rep. Cummings reveals legal strategy to fight probes
ANALYSIS — It was a remarkable 24-hour reversal, with President Donald Trump first saying Monday he cooperates with “everybody” before turning to an unlikely source for a precedent to reject House Democrats’ demands for reams of documents: Barack Obama.
House Democratic chairmen of committees in the embryonic stages of investigations into all things Trump have requested documents from and interviews with a long list of individuals and entities related to the president’s time in office, 2016 campaign and business dealings. Trump seemed willing to, at least in some form, comply with some of those requests when he said this on Monday: “I cooperate all the time, with everybody.”
But by the next afternoon, it appeared the president had been trying to buy time for his aides to determine the extent to which they believe the law will require White House compliance. As he often does — even as White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told House Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings that “we are prepared to continue negotiations in good faith” — the president went to the most extreme option, appearing to reverse himself.
View the complete March 6 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.