The ranking Democrat of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Aam Schiff, questioned whether the Supreme Court would force President Donald Trump to comply with a potential interview subpoena from the special counsel.
The comments come amid speculation and uncertainty as to whether Trump would voluntarily sit for an interview with Robert Mueller’s investigators. Namely, Shiff said in an interview Monday with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that if the President doesn’t agree to sit for an interview he wasn’t confident Trump would be forced to do so by the Supreme Court because he believed the conservative majority would side with him.
“Legally, it’s clear: You can’t ignore a subpoena, even if you’re the President of the United States,” said the Democrat. “However, remember the Supreme Court that we have. If this goes all the way up to this Supreme Court … this Supreme Court seems to make its decisions based on what Donald Trump and the Republican Party want, as opposed to precedents or the Constitution.”
Last week, the President’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said Trump and his team of lawyers will decide whether he would meet with the special counsel within 10 days at the latest.
According to the current precedent, established during President Richard Nixon’s term, presidents are not immune to subpoenas from investigators. However, back in the 1990s, Brett Kavanaugh, the President’s latest Supreme Court nominee, said that the Nixon case could have been “wrongly decided.”
Nonetheless, two years ago he said that was one of the cases which contributed to the “greatest moments in American judicial history.” He has indicated to senators that he sees as appropriate the appointment of a special counsel, but that he was unsure whether a sitting president can be indicted on criminal charges as Congress should have the say in impeaching a president.
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