últimas notícias

“This longstanding principle is firmly rooted in the Constitution’s separation of powers and protects the core functions of the presidency, and we are adhering to this well-established precedent in order to ensure that future Presidents can effectively execute the responsibilities of the Office of the presidency,” Mr. Cipollone wrote, referencing the Justice Department opinion.

But there are outstanding legal questions.

A Federal District Court judge, John Bates, rejected that theory in a 2008 dispute over a congressional subpoena to Harriet Miers, a former White House Counsel to then-President George W. Bush. He ruled that Ms. Miers had to show up, although she might still refuse to answer specific questions based on a claim of executive privilege.

The executive branch did not appeal that ruling, and because no appeals court weighed in, Judge Bates’ opinion does not count as a controlling precedent for other disputes raising the same issue. That left the Obama administration, in a 2014 memo, free to take the position that Judge Bates was wrong.

Even if Mr. McGahn, like Ms. Miers before him, ultimately does have to appear before Congress, the separate issue would remain of whether he could rely on a claim of executive privilege by Mr. Trump to avoid answering questions about his communications with the president — even though the Trump administration already disclosed the substance of those talks by making the Mueller report public.

In a 2016 case involved a congressional subpoena for internal executive branch documents that had been described in a Justice Department inspector general report, another Federal District Court judge ruled that because the executive branch had already made public their “sum and substance,” Mr. Obama could not use the privilege to keep Congress from seeing the underlying files. But that case, too, was resolved without any appeals court ruling.