The Week in Washington: “Presidents Are Not Kings!”
“Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that presidents are not kings,” federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson declared last Monday night, ordering former White House counsel Don McGahn to obey a congressional subpoena, and handing the Trump administration a stunning defeat. King Trump had been claiming that McGahn and a host of other White House staffers, past and present, were forbidden to testify and were under a cloak of what he called “blanket immunity,” a conceit that the judge rejected. “It is indisputable that current and former employees of the White House work for the People of the United States,” she wrote, “and that they take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
In the face of this spectacular legal rebuke, the president backpedaled and prevaricated as per usual. “The D.C. Wolves and Fake News Media are reading far too much into people being forced by Courts to testify before Congress,” he tweeted on Tuesday. “I am fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President. Other than that, I would actually like people to testify.”
He has even claimed that he would like to testify himself, having preciously tweeted that Nancy Pelosi “suggested on Sunday’s DEFACE THE NATION that I testify about the phony Impeachment Witch Hunt. She also said I could do it in writing. …Even though I did nothing wrong, and don’t like giving credibility to this No Due Process Hoax, I like the idea & will, in order to get Congress focused again, strongly consider it!”
As it happens, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler is giving the president until Friday at 6 p.m. to “strongly consider it.” Last Tuesday, as the house considered next steps in the impeachment battle, Nadler stated that, “the impeachment inquiry is entering into a new phase…I have also written to President Trump to remind him that the committee’s impeachment inquiry rules allow for the President to attend the hearing and for his counsel to question the witness panel.”
While we hold our breath waiting for the president to occupy the witness stand—which would be the greatest event in television history—there is other scheduled programming to occupy our attention. On Wednesday at 10 a.m., the House Judiciary Committee will hold its own impeachment hearing, featuring a roster of legal scholars, and special guest stars.
In other news, the commander-in-chief is hinting that he will throw Rudy Giuliani under that massive bus rumbling down Pennsylvania Avenue. On Tuesday, Trump told his old pal Bill O’Reilly that he did not “direct” his old pal Giuliani to go to Ukraine. When O’Reilly asked him what Giuliani was “doing in Ukraine on your behalf,” the president replied, “Well, you have to ask that to Rudy. But Rudy, I don’t—I don’t even know,” Trump replied. “I know he was going to go to Ukraine, and I think he canceled a trip. But, you know, Rudy has other clients other than me. I’m one person.” (Will Giuliani give us the holiday present we crave and flip and supply every tawdry detail of this repulsive Ukraine affair? We can dream.)
And guess who is threatening to pull off the mask off and show his or her face? Why, it’s Anonymous, author of the White House tell-all A Warning, who swears the big reveal will take place sometime before the next election because, “as far as anonymity is concerned, I will not keep my identity shrouded in secrecy forever. I am not afraid to use my own name to express concern about the current occupant of the Oval Office.” (Our money is on Kellyanne.)
Lastly, we leave you with a tantalizing article from Wednesday’s Washington Post, which alleges that a certain very important, very famous phone call between the current occupant of the Oval Office and Ambassador Gordon Sondland may never have taken place. No, not the phone call where Trump said to Ukrainian president Zelensky, “Do me a favor, though,” and not the one where Sondland allegedly tells Trump that Zelensky “loves your ass.” It’s the one where Trump claims he wants nothing from Ukraine, the one where he supposedly utters the magic words, “No quid pro quo.” (This is the call that Trump had the Cliff Notes for at a Wednesday press event—because he couldn’t remember “No quid pro quo” without a cheat sheet.)
According to the Post, there is no solid evidence that this call ever happened. “Trump himself, in describing the conversation, has referred only to the ambassador’s account of the call, which—based on Sondland’s activities—would have occurred before dawn in Washington,” the article states. “And the White House has not located a record in its switchboard logs of a call between Trump and Sondland on Sept. 9, according to an administration official who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.”
Originally Appeared on Vogue
