Acting Attorney General Whitaker has sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee threatening to cancel his appearance before their committee tomorrow if they issue a subpoena against him.
JUST IN: US Justice Dept. tells the House Judiciary Cmte. that Acting AG Whitaker will not appear before Friday's scheduled hearing if the cmte. issues a subpoena against him - @PeteWilliamsNBC
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 7, 2019
Colleague Jake Gibson rpts acting AG Whitaker won’t go to tomorrow’s hearing if Judiciary Cmte Chair Nadler won’t withdraw subpoena
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) February 7, 2019
Whitaker letter to Nadler: Consistent with longstanding practice, I remain willing to appear to testify tomorrow, provided that the Chairman assures me that the Committee will not issue a subpoena today or tomorrow
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) February 7, 2019
Earlier today the House Judiciary Committee voted to authorize a subpoena ‘if necessary’:
House Judiciary Committee approves authorizing a subpoena for acting AG Matt Whitaker -- if necessary -- on party-line vote, 23-13.
— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) February 7, 2019
Nadler says the subpoena will be used if Whitaker refuses to answer questions. Ds also rejected a GOP amendment to add Rosenstein to the subpoena
Democrats are anticipating that Whitaker won’t answer certain questions due to executive privilege. But a subpoena isn’t going to force him to answer anything protected by executive privilege. They can take it to court to enforce the subpoena, but that will only create a long court battle that and it’s doubtful it would be successful In the end, this is really about scoring political points:
8/ The bottom line is that the House has limited ability to force Whitaker to answer questions he doesn’t want to answer. Tomorrow will be more about scoring political points and setting up a court battle in which House Dems hope to do the same.
— Ross Garber (@rossgarber) February 7, 2019