In late breaking news, a federal judge has summarily rejected the Trump administration’s president as potentate argument. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the federal district court in DC ruled that former White House counsel Don McGahn must obey a lawful Congressional subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee and appear to testify.
“The president does not have the power to excuse” his aides from complying with the law, including the process of obeying lawful subpoenas, the judge said.
Here are the quick takeaways:
The judge’s ruling is broad and seems to apply to all presidential appointees, not just the White House Counsel. This means John Bolton now has the court ruling he wanted to be able to testify in the impeachment hearing. Time will tell whether he will.
The ruling debunks the Trump-Bart DOJ argument that if a sitting president isn’t above the law, he is certainly beyond the reach of it. No one is above the law, said the judge.
This is your late night thread.