WTF Just Happened Today

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

1/ Trump asserted executive privilege over Robert Mueller's full, unredacted report. Yesterday, Attorney General William Barr and the Justice Department advised Trump to make a "protective assertion of executive privilege" in response to Democratic plans to hold Barr in contempt of Congress over his refusal to turn over Mueller's report or underlying materials to Congress. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said Trump's "decision [to assert privilege] represents a clear escalation in the Trump administration's blanket defiance of Congress's constitutionally mandated duties." The move will not have a direct impact on possible testimony from Mueller, but it could limit the scope of what he can say by putting some subjects off limits. The committee will vote Wednesday to hold Barr in contempt for not complying with a congressional subpoena. (ABC News / New York Times / Washington Post / Politico / CNN)

• ???? Day 838: The White House invoked executive privilege and ordered former counsel Donald McGahn not to comply with a congressional subpoena for documents related to Robert Mueller's investigation. In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, White House counsel Pat Cipollone argued that "McGahn does not have the legal right to disclose these documents to third parties" and asked that the committee instead direct the request to the White House, "because they implicate significant Executive Branch confidentiality interests and executive privilege." Trump has also promised to assert executive privilege to block McGahn's testimony to the committee later this month. McGahn spent more than 30 hours speaking to Mueller's investigators, outlining two episodes where Trump asked him to have Mueller fired, and later asking McGahn to deny news reports about that conversation. McGahn rebuffed both requests. (CNBC / ABC News / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / New York Times)

2/ Mueller tried to block the release of James Comey's contemporaneous memos over concerns that Trump and other witnesses could change their stories after reading them. The Justice Department asked a federal judge to keep the memos under seal around the same time Mueller's team was negotiating with Trump over a potential presidential interview. Mueller's team said it was worried that "the recollections of one witness, if disclosed to another potential witness, have the...

Visit WTF Just Happened Today? for more news and headlines, brought to you by Matt Kiser. The WTFJHT Podcast is narrated and produced by Joe Amditis.