WTF Just Happened Today

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

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1/ The White House will review and decide what evidence from Robert Mueller's report the House Judiciary Committee gets to see. The Trump administration will work with the Justice Department and is expected to assert executive privilege to limit the documents the committee has access to. (Daily Beast)

• ???? Day 872: The Justice Department agreed to provide Congress with "key evidence" collected by Robert Mueller related to obstruction of justice and abuse of power by Trump. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said "Mueller's most important files" will be available to all committee members, allowing "us to perform our constitutional duties and decide how to respond to the allegations laid out against the President by the Special Counsel." The House Judiciary Committee, however, moved no closer to securing testimony from Mueller or other figures, such as former White House counsel Donald McGahn, who has declined to testify, citing Trump administration lawyers. (New York Times / CNN / Washington Post)

2/ The House authorized committee chairs to sue the Trump administration in federal court to enforce a series of subpoenas. The House Judiciary Committee can now begin legal proceedings to enforce the panel's subpoenas for Mueller's evidence and force former White House Counsel Donald McGahn to cooperate with the panels' probe into whether Trump obstructed justice. The move also empowers other committee chairmen to seek enforcement of their own subpoenas for testimony and documents, such as Trump's tax returns. The measure, however, stopped short of a criminal contempt citation for Attorney General William Barr and McGahn. (Politico / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg)

• The Justice Department advised Trump to invoke executive privilege to block House Democrats' access to documents about efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd threatened the blanket assertion of privilege if the House Oversight and Reform Committee proceeds with a scheduled vote on Wednesday to hold Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress. (Politico)

3/ Trump Jr. will be interviewed by Senate Intelligence Committee behind closed doors on Wednesday. The Republican-led committee subpoenaed Trump Jr last month, angering Trump and his allies. Trump Jr. will testify for two-to-four hours on a half dozen topics, including the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and the Trump Tower Moscow project. (CNN)