Former special counsel Robert Mueller wasn't as entertaining as they had hoped, but for the 90 percent of Americans who never read the report, it was news that President Donald Trump was not exonerated. While Mueller put the cracks in the dam, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance warned that ex-White House counsel Don McGahn would outright break it.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) is in court after McGahn denied a subpoena after the president told him not to testify.
During a Saturday panel discussion, Vance divorced the political and legal pieces of the Capitol Hill battles.
"Legally this is a master move because the White House is forcing Democrats to go into court to fight for every little bit of evidence that they hope to acquire, the Democrats strengthen their hand in terms of what the law provides by being able to tell the judge, 'Look, this is a proceeding that precedent to a quasi-judicial hearing which is a fancy way of saying 'We're investigating whether or not we should file articles of impeachment,' which after all are very much like an indictment,"
She explained that prosecutors don't walk into the office and decide to indict, they investigate first. That's the position Congress is in now.
"The court now recognizes, or will likely recognize, it looks like black-letter law to me, that this gives them the ability to get information that the White House has tried to block," she continued. "And Don McGahn is really, I think the prize here. There will undoubtedly be things in the grand jury material that no one has seen before that will be of value. It's hard to assess that until one sees it, but Don McGahn is a known quantity."
She said that if Democrats put him before Congress and they have transcripts Mueller left them, they will be able to hold him accountable if he admits he was asked to lie for the president, lie to the press and create fake documents.
Watch the full panel below:
