The real reason today’s Don McGahn court ruling is so devastating to Donald Trump
As we told you would very likely happen, a federal judge has ruled that former White House Counsel Don McGahn must testify in the House impeachment inquiry. There are some caveats when it comes to McGahn in particular, some of which haven’t yet made themselves fully clear. But this ruling is devastating to Donald Trump, for reasons that go beyond just McGahn.
The judge ruled that Don McGahn can invoke executive privilege in limited circumstances during his testimony, but she fully rejected the Trump regime’s claim that “absolute immunity” exists. McGahn was the one seeking legal guidance on this, so he can decide if he wants to go ahead and testify now, or if he wants to wait for the Trump regime to appeal. We’ll see what he does. But this was less about McGahn and more about another impeachment witness.
John Bolton has made very clear that he was looking to see how the judge ruled on the McGahn case so he could decide whether he should give his own impeachment testimony. Bolton spent the weekend hyping himself on Twitter, ostensibly expecting today’s ruling to go this way, and seemingly expecting to end up testifying next week. So we could see a scenario in which McGahn hides behind an appeal for now, but Bolton goes ahead and testifies.
There is also the larger picture. This federal judge just established legal precedent that Donald Trump and his White House are completely full of crap when it comes to their attempted invocation of privilege. This kicks the door open in all kinds of ways. House Democrats can now pursue testimony and documents from essentially any current or former White House officials they want. This ruling is precisely what the Trump regime had been hoping to avoid.
