Washington - 6 May 2019
1. SOUNDBITE: (English) Victoria Nourse, Georgetown Law Professor:
"I think this White House has been the most combative since Nixon. ... I don't think that this president is following the existing precedents. The last president I know who actually pursued the claim that he would not respond, his senior officials would not respond to House subpoenas was Nixon."
Washington - 6 May 2019
2. STILL: President Donald Trump speaking in Rose Garden
Washington - 15 March 1973
3. STILL: President Nixon duirng a news conference
Washington - 6 May 2019
4. SOUNDBITE: (English) Victoria Nourse, Georgetown Law Professor:
"This particular stance about refusing to honor subpoenas is very aggressive. Typically, these things happen every day up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. They're negotiated. Why? People don't want the American public to think that they are stonewalling, that they're not doing the business of the people."
5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Victoria Nourse, Georgetown Law Professor:
"The weight is in favor of Congress's investigatory authority. Now, his (President Donald Trump) argument will be, 'well they don't need it anymore because we have the Mueller report,' but his judgment is not the final judgment. We know that from United States versus Nixon. The Nixon case says the president cannot decide on his own. The court is the final arbiter of whether Congress needs this information or it's within its congressional constitutional authority. So, I don't see any legitimate ground for the executive to be pushing back against Mueller testimony. Again, to do that, they'd also perhaps support it with this unitary executive theory that all members of the executive branch are under the president's authority and therefore he can order him not to testify. Mueller's response to that, I expect, would be simply to resign."
Washington - File Recent
6. Exteriors of US Capitol
Washington - April 18, 2019
7. Various of Mueller report as released to public
Washington - 1 April 1974
8. STILL: President Nixon after announcing he would turn tapes over to House investigators
Washington - 25 June 1973
9. STILL: former White House aide John Dean III being sworn in by Senate Watergate Committee Chairman Sam Ervin
Washington - 21 June 2017
10. STILL: Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs Capitol
Washington - 6 May 2019
11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Victoria Nourse, Georgetown Law Professor:
"My biggest fear is that if it were to go to court and the court were to affirm Congress' authority that the president would simply refuse. That would be a true constitutional crisis because in fact you would have one branch saying to the other branch, the courts, I'm not going to pay attention to you in which case there is no way to resolve that. The only way to resolve it would be in fact impeachment under the Constitution."
Washington - File Recent
12. Exteriors of US Supreme Court
A legal scholar says that the the battle between the Democrat-led House and President Donald Trump over special counsel Robert Mueller's report could lead to a constitutional crisis.
Victoria Nourse, a professor at Georgetown Law University, views the Trump administration as "the most combative" since former President Richard Nixon.
Nourse, who has served both Republicans and Democrats as a legal counsel, says that the current battle between Trump and House Republicans could end up in court.
While she believes that there is legal precedent that defends Congress' ability to request documents, Trump could ultimately decide not to comply with any judicial ruling.
"My biggest fear is that if it were to go to court and the court were to affirm Congress' authority that the president would simply refuse," Nurse said, referring to potential contempt proceedings against Attorney General Bill Barr and subpoenas House Democrats have threatened to issue over a number of investigations.
"That would be a true constitutional crisis because in fact you would have one branch saying to the other branch, the courts, 'I'm not going to pay attention to you,' in which case there is no way to resolve that. The only way to resolve it would be in fact impeachment under the Constitution and that's a very extreme remedy."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler has scheduled a Wednesday vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress. Nadler is proposing to hold Barr in contempt after the Justice Department declined to provide the committee with a full, unredacted version of special counsel Mueller's report on Trump and Russia. The committee had given Barr until 9 a.m. Monday to comply.
Republicans have sharply criticized Democrats as they have battled Trump's administration over the Mueller report, subpoenaed multiple administration witnesses and made efforts to gain access to Trump's personal and business financial records. Trump has said he will fight "all the subpoenas."
