congress. we have individual people, both current officials and former officials, doj is offering one part of the law and congress is offering the other. they have to decide which version to comply with and this is the court weighing in, in a way that directly speaks to those individuals saying you have to comply with, not what mcgahn said but takes away from the decision. one of the things the judge says to the administration officials, a spicy line in his decision, the trump card should at most be a rain check. it really gets to this idea you cannot, as the white house decide carte blanche nobody can ever go before congress even after they left the administration. i want to bring jeffrey toobin back into this and reread that key sentence. i will read it once again for
mcgahn continue to honor the president s current ruling or go by either the district court opinion that came down today or his previous instruction to cooperate with mueller? that s really up to mcgahn. it s a pretty lengthy decision by this federal judge. right. i think the most important thing the judge is saying, just because you work for the president and work very very close, at the top of the food chain there at the white house doesn t mean you don t have to show up for what is a lawful subpoena. a part of it, as a matter of law, senior level current presidential aides including white house counsels must appear before congress if compelled by legislative process to do so. this means that such aides cannot defy a congressional subpoena on the basis of absolute testimonial immunity even if the president for whom they work or worked demands that
much. either the congress or the president, by his own patriotic decision, should relieve the nation of a burden that s grown too heavy to carry any longer. the effect of this was a huge dip in public support for richard nixon. but the white house thought that it could solve the tapes problem by producing transcripts. the idea that he s going to release these transcripts, richard nixon thinks he s finally going to be able to cauterize the wound. i think there s no doubt about the seriousness of the problem we have. we have a cancer from within close to the presidency that is growing. the tapes show that the president is involved at the times that dean said he was. it shows that dean s memory is prodigious. dean. i would say these people are going to cost a million dollars over the next two years. the president. you could get a million dollars. you could get it in cash. i know where it could be gotten. now, when individuals read
response. she goes on to talk about the fact it doesn t matter whether you worked as white house counsel or in the national security. that s an important thing, because what the white house has been arguing, the justice department has been arguing, there s a certain number of people, very close aides to the president in national security here that they enjoy super immunity. don mcgahn has absolute immunity. they re saying there is another category super immunity. she is going ahead and striking down not only those arguments, the current arguments don mcgahn has been making but these other ones saying you have to show up. as susan hennessey pointed out, you can still absolutely say, i can t answer those questions because that goes to executive privilege and fight that out. you are not allowed to stiff the congress just because you say you have absolute immunity.
devices? that would be unlikely. my assumption is that they didn t know. the story of watergate takes on a whole different complexion. and the happiest man in the moment would be john dean. what is the best way to reconstruct those conversations mr. butterfield? well, in the obvious manner, mr. dash, to obtain the tape and play it. slowly, this smile comes over my face, and i said, get those tapes as fast as you can before they disappear. this afternoon i received from the white house a letter declining to furnish the eight requested tapes. careful study before requesting the tapes convinced me that any blanket claim of privilege to withhold this evidence from the grand jury is without legal foundation. nixon had a legitimate argument that congress shouldn t