President Donald Trump accused Democrats of wanting a “do-over” of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on June 19, as a former aide of his arrived on Capitol Hill for a closed-door testimony before the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee.
Hope Hicks was Trump’s press secretary and his White House communications director until she left in March 2018. The White House has asserted immunity over testimony by Hicks, citing her 14 months in the Trump administration. She was first subpoenaed in May.
“The Dems are very unhappy with the Mueller Report, so after almost 3 years, they want a Redo, or Do Over,” Trump said on Twitter. “This is extreme Presidential Harassment. They gave Crooked Hillary’s people complete Immunity, yet now they bring back Hope Hicks.”
“Why aren’t the Dems looking at the 33,000 Emails that Hillary and her lawyer deleted and acid washed AFTER GETTING A SUBPOENA FROM CONGRESS? That is real Obstruction that the Dems want no part of because their hearings are RIGGED and a disgrace to our Country!”
The committee initially subpoenaed Hicks to give public testimony, but later agreed to a private interview. It remains unclear if any new information will come from Hicks, who has already cooperated extensively with Mueller’s probe. A transcript of the session will be released in the days afterward.
Hicks ignored shouted questions from reporters as she arrived to testify in the closed-door session. The 30-year-old was accompanied by two lawyers.
A day before her testimony, White House counsel Pat Cipollone sent a letter to the committee chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) stating how the president had directed Hicks not to answer questions “relating to the time of her service as a senior adviser to the president.”
In the June 18 letter, Cipollone said Hicks was “absolutely immune” from testimony, with respect to her previous role to the President, citing the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. After Hicks left the White House, she took the role of communications officer and executive president for Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News.
The assertions during questioning of executive privilege, a legal principle sometimes cited by presidents to keep sensitive White House information from being released, would block a key line of inquiry by the committee and could lead to a subsequent legal challenge.
In a final press conference, Mueller said his team decided not to make a determination about bringing an obstruction of justice charge against the president. Mueller also concluded that there wasn’t enough evidence to establish that Trump colluded with Russia.
The White House last month asserted executive privilege to block the release of Mueller’s fully unredacted report and related evidence, such as grand jury information, the release of which is against the law. The Justice Department has nevertheless agreed to giving panel members access to more of the Mueller report and some underlying material from the investigation.
