On Wednesday, Politico reported that lawyers working for the House of Representatives issued a blistering court filing accusing President Donald Trump, among other things, of trying to use the power of his office to “obstruct his own impeachment.”
The filing, part of the House Judiciary Committee’s attempt to seek testimony from ex-White House Counsel Don McGahn, cites the White House’s repeated efforts to block current and former Trump administration officials from testifying — and even some allies of Trump who have never held any position in his government.
“A president with the power to obstruct his own impeachment through capacious grants of absolute immunity would be a president who is above the law,” wrote House lawyers. “If the president could deprive the committee of information required for its impeachment inquiry into his own misconduct, the president could potentially thwart his accountability for that conduct.”
Trump and his associates have broadly attacked the impeachment inquiry as somehow illegitimate, demanding that the House take a formal vote on impeachment before starting — something that is not constitutionally required to investigate the president.