In the past day or so, President Trump and the White House have instructed a former official not to comply with a House subpoena as part of an investigation into the dubious handling of security clearances. They’ve launched an unusual lawsuit to block House Democrats from accessing his finances. And they’re preparing to refuse to turn over his tax returns, which will likely violate the law.
Plainly, Trump is determined to treat any and all oversight as illegitimate — even though this is a core institutional function of Congress — with the goal of keeping his seemingly bottomless corruption shielded from public view.
This is obviously all a delaying game. It doesn’t matter if Trump wins these battles as long as they take more than a year to play out. In the meantime, it’s obvious that Trump is hellbent on preventing any oversight of his presidency at least until Election Day next year. After that, Democrats can do anything they want and it won’t matter. If Trump loses, then Democrats will stop on their own accord. If he wins, he’s safe from everything since Republicans will never agree to impeach him even if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue.
