Congressional subpoenas are a vital investigative and legal tool compelling witnesses to provide information, allowing Congress to fulfill its constitutional duties of oversight.
Yet under President Donald Trump's administration, subpoenas have been rendered all but decorative. Most recently, the White House instructed staff not to comply with congressional subpoenas seeking information in the impeachment inquiry against the President.
On Tuesday morning, Trump's bulwark against accountability earned Trump an article of impeachment for obstruction of Congress, reading:
"Donald J. Trump has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its 'sole Power of Impeachment.'"
But Attorney General William Barr—whose job it is to uphold the law of the land—is defending the White House's defiance.
Watch below.
At a Wall Street Journal event, Barr insisted that the President has the privilege to defy subpoenas:
"I don't consider that obstruction. I don't believe it's the case that where somebody, including a branch of government, is asserting a legal privilege that they have under the law that that constitutes obstruction."
People were quick to correct him.
People were astounded to hear the defense from an Attorney General.
The corruption is real.
