Washington Post: ‘Congress has every right to investigate’ Trump

The Washington Post on Wednesday said Congress “has every right to investigate” President Trump.

The Post, in an editorial titled “Sorry, Mr. President. Congress has every right to investigate you,” pushed back against comments Trump made in an exclusive interview with the newspaper just one day before. 

Speaking to the Post on Tuesday, Trump said he believed “there is no reason to go any further” with any more investigations after the White House cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible obstruction of justice.{mosads}

“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump told the Post.  

Trump also told reporters on Wednesday that he intends to fight “all the subpoenas” issued by the House for further investigations, and brushed off a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee calling for former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify as “ridiculous.”

“If that were the standard, then Congress could never investigate anything,” the Post’s editorial board wrote. “Mr. Trump’s Republican colleagues must remember the battles they fought with President Barack Obama over transparency only a few years ago when they ran the House.”

The board then noted that former President Obama asserted executive privilege to prevent then-Attorney General Eric Holder from releasing documents on a gun-running scheme dubbed “Fast and Furious.”

“Republicans held Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress,” the board wrote. 

The Post pointed to the stance its staff took in an editorial published at the time, in which it wrote: “No doubt a lot of congressional investigations are partisan fishing expeditions. For better or worse, that comes with the democratic territory.”

“Absent very strong countervailing considerations — stronger than some of those the administration has asserted in this case — Congress is generally entitled to disclosure,” the board wrote. “Democrats, too, are entitled to disclosure, particularly as they ask weighty questions about the potentially severe abuse of power in the top reaches of the White House.” 

The paper added in its Wednesday editorial that Trump’s “own words reveal that he is motivated not by any specific concern about protecting presidential decision-making or some other crucial executive-branch function — but by concealing anything that might land him in political jeopardy.”

“In the past, the executive branch and Congress generally struck deals to avoid direct confrontations on executive secrecy. But Mr. Trump seems unlikely to ditch his pugnacious attitude,” the board continued. “If and when courts consider the situation, they will find a president unreasonably hostile to Congress’s legitimate interest in gathering information.”

Democrats have pressed for the full, unredacted version of Mueller’s more than 400-page report, which was released in redacted form last week. Democratic lawmakers have also pledged to carry on with investigations into the president’s taxes, potential abuse of power and the White House security clearance process, among other areas.

In the redacted document, investigators did not establish that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 election, but did not exonerate Trump on the question of obstruction of justice.

Trump on Wednesday argued the Mueller investigation was thorough enough to eliminate the need for congressional probes. He suggested Mueller’s team may have reviewed his taxes and finances, another target of Democratic document requests.