From The Guardian
The president is treating Congress with contempt. This cannot stand and Congress must fight back
"We're fighting all the subpoenas," says the person who is supposed to be chief executive of the United States government.
In other words, there is to be no congressional oversight of this administration: no questioning officials who played a role in putting a citizenship question on the 2020 census. No questioning a former White House counsel about the Mueller report.
No questioning a Trump adviser about immigration policy. No questioning a former White House security director about issuances of security clearances.
No presidential tax returns to the ways and means committee, even though a 1920s law specifically authorizes the committee to get them.
Such a blanket edict fits a dictator of a banana republic, not the president of a constitutional republic founded on separation of powers.
If Congress cannot question the people who are making policy, or obtain critical documents, Congress cannot function as a coequal branch of government.
If Congress cannot get information about the executive branch, there is no longer any separation of powers, as sanctified in the US constitution.
There is only one power -- the power of the president to rule as he wishes.
Which is what Donald Trump has sought all along.
The only relevant question is how stop this dictatorial move. And let's be clear: this is a dictatorial move.
The man whose aides cooperated, shall we say, with Russia... the man who still refuses to do anything at all about Russia's continued interference in the American political system... refuses to cooperate with a branch of the United States government that the Constitution requires him to cooperate with in order that the government functions.
Presidents before Trump occasionally have argued that complying with a particular subpoena for a particular person or document would infringe upon confidential deliberations within the executive branch. But no president before Trump has used "executive privilege" as a blanket refusal to cooperate.
How should Congress respond to this dictatorial move?
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