Showdown in Congress between Trump and Democrats intensifies

WASHINGTON: The clash between US President Donald Trump and the Democratic majority in Congress intensified on Monday, with the White House telling the president’s former lawyer to ignore a subpoena to testify about Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice in the Russia probe.

And in a big setback for Trump, a federal judge denied the president’s attempt to quash another subpoena from Democratic lawmakers ordering an accounting firm to release years of Trump financial documents dating from before he took office. That decision marks the first time US courts have waded into the conflict that pits the president against Democrats who have opened a raft of probes into his administration since they took control of the House of Representatives in January. In a sign of the uphill battle their investigations face, an attorney for Trump’s former lawyer Don McGahn said his client would follow the White House’s instructions and not testify about Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice at a House Judiciary Committee hearing set for Tuesday. “Under these circumstances, and also conscious of the duties he, as an attorney, owes to his former client, Mr. McGahn must decline to appear at the hearing tomorrow,” his attorney William A. Burck wrote to the committee, adding that his client “understands from your prior correspondence that the Committee would vote to hold him in contempt should he not appear.” Earlier in the day, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler called the White House’s move “the latest act of obstruction,” and said “the Committee will convene as planned tomorrow morning, and Mr. McGahn is expected to appear as legally required.”