Passed what is in effect a ban on abortion in that state. The governor who signed it today admitted quickly because it goes against the law of our land but this bill is designed to challenge that very precedent. Tonight well look at what this means for the women of alabama, the future of roe v wade, the effect this may have on 2020. We begin in washington because there is news tonight on the continued white house efforts to push back to defy democrats in Congress Just today came a 12page letter from white House Counsel pat to House Judiciary Committee chaiman jerry nadler. Congress is not a Law Enforcement entity and has no standing to investigate the president. The white House Counsel rejected requests for the records and testimony from current and former Trump Officials that house dems need to see and go through to investigate obstruction. Goes on to write quote congressional investigations are intended to obtain information to aid and evaluate potential legislation, not to harass political opponents or pursue an unauthorized do over of exhaustive Law Enforcement investigations conducted by the department of justice. That do over reference there is a drive by reference to the Mueller Investigation. Well, tonight that house judiciary chairman, the democrat from new york jerry nadler insisted the house is not backing down. The white house and the department of justice is enabling the white house to try to evade accountability to the people. To say in effect the president is a tyrant and dictator with no limit. Well use any legal power we have with respect to mr. Muller and mr. Mcgahn, to anybody to do our job of holding administration accountable. Democrats have issued subpoenas to nearly ten current and former Trump Officials among them the secretary of the treasury Steve Mnuchin is still refusing to release six years of the president s tax returns to the house ways and Means Committee and has until friday to reply. Today mnuchin was asked about that deadline. How do you plan to respond to chairman neals claims . We havent had an official response yet. We will compile with the timing of it, i think you can pretty much guess how were going to but i havent made a decision. The democrats are trying weaponize the irs. Its a very, very dangerous issue. Mnuchin had not spoken to the president or white house about how to handle the demand for records and were learning leaders in the house are taking their time about making any more serious moves against this white house. They are holding off any kind of a dramatic floor vote to hold the attorney general or any other big name senior officials in contempt with that as our predicate, time for the lead off discussion. Robert costa for the Washington Post moderator of Washington Week on pbs and carol lennig for the Washington Post and Jonathan Lamere and former assistant u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york now with the new school here in new york. Good evening and welcome to all of you. Carol, this 12page long effort to say no to house democrats, how does it differ substantially from other letters intended to say no . I think what is most striking about it, brian, is the fairly bold claim which the white house has made in a less dramatic way in court but in this instance laying out their legal reasoning for saying the white house doesnt have to give anything to congress because congress doesnt have legitimate standing to investigate the president. Its something that a lot of legal scholars sort of spit up their coffee over because they dont believe that thats true but it does give the white house this opportunity to say hey, it looks like you just want to harass our guy, so we want to hear from you, your legitimate purpose for getting all these records and then well consider your request. Indeed. Jonathan lamere, this notion of congress is not a Law Enforcement entity was not for most of us Walking Around the earth was not a thing as of yesterday. No, no, it was not. It had become a growing talking point in recent days and at the white house memorialized. Your job is not to be a Law Enforcement agency. We realize part of Congress Responsibility is to provide oversight over the executive branch. Thats something we did know before yesterday. It was in the constitution. Weve all read it. And that they are saying with congress, house of representatives is its partisan overreach and special counsel didnt deliver the verdict you wanted and didnt find the president colluded with russia and didnt make a judgment on obstruction. So therefore this is a double jeopardy, if you will. Youre trying to get another bite at the apple and that the crossed the line of being political harassment. Democrats say this is our constitutional duty to do this and proceeding aggressively with subpoenas and Everything Else and this white house time and time again we saw today was the sharpest escalation of their strategy. To just say no. Theyre not going to, at least today go invoke blanket executive privilege. They could down the road. It would only cooperate in the most narrow of senses. This is from the oval office. The president said were not going to cooperate, were going to stonewall on every front whether thats witness testimony, underlying evidence of the Mueller Report or the president s tax returns. Theyre just going to say no to everything democrats want. As luck would have it, we have a really good lawyer that gets the next question. Is any of this legally sustainable in your view and if not, why not . No. So, i mean, the short answer is no. It doesnt mean there arent arguments that are valid arguments that can be made in certain circumstances including you could imagine the statute on tax returns is very explicit that says shall. That doesnt mean there arent constitutional arguments about peoples ability to say but im not. Its just that they dont necessarily apply here i think. But certainly you can make arguments. I think where it really gets complicated is trump doesnt have any good arguments on this. Most of this is communications rather than constitution and that is the primary point here. You know, weve had previous administrations that have said we are not going to give you congress these things youve asked for in the context of the Obama Administration and the gun walking case of fast and furious where atf, you know, did a gun walking exercise to try to track guns into mexico. Turned out they got used to kill a Border Patrol agent. The Republican Congress very aggressively started investigating the department of justice atf and ended up in a contempt vote against eric holder. But the point is, in this instance, eric holder and the department of justice had actually turned over a large amount of information and documents to congress. It was only withholding some communications. Even in that case court said Amy Jackson Berman you might remember from some of the mueller cases said sorry white house, sorry department of justice, you do have to turn those over. Required litigation. My point is fighting about it is not what is anti constitutional. It is fighting about everything. Its the absolute stonewalling and the refusal to acknowledge congress has any Oversight Authority and the conflation. Congress standard is not a criminal standard. Point of personal privilege that has to do with robert costa who got to return to the state where he was educated in college. Back home again in indiana where today they buried former senator dick luger, a rare republican globalist clearly prom another era. On capitol hill. And bob, im asking because i know you happen to be the reporting pool on Board Air Force 2 with our Vice President mitch mcconnell. The majority leader in the u. S. Senate and for good measure, the chief justice. What, if anything, did you glean about the status of the highflying gop . Quite a group on air force two today. It was notable as the Pool Reporter to notice that chief Justice Robert sat away from the congressional delegation, was careful to not have any kind of interactions beyond hello and a pleased to see you to the Vice President and mrs. Pence. You could see, even though i didnt speak to him the chief justice was being quite careful understanding the dynamic of a reporter watching and having this group in air force two. With regard to the political question, brian, when you talk to white house officials, they say they want this fight with the democrats because when the democrats are talking about obstruction and talking about subpoenas, they are not talking about the trade war. They are not talking about tariffs and how farmers in the swing states and midwest may be feeling the pain and this for the republicans is a political winner because they feel now that the Mueller Report is over, they are just going to taunt the democrats legally and politically as much as possible and when they heard about the attorney general making his remark to Speaker Pelosi wearing handcuffs in terms of holding him in contempt and maybe putting him in prison arresting him, they loved it. Thats the mood inside of this west wing. Let me ask you this about the Democratic Base and your colleagues at Washington Post wrote about this today. Pelosi told democrats in a closed door caucus meeting wednesday morning to stick to their policy agenda ahead of the 2020 election rather than initiate impeachment proceedings and not a single lawmaker challenged her. This is so interesting, robert, because the rank and file has been a little critical and a little frustrated. They have heard a lot of crickets from leadership. Last we heard from House Judiciary Committee was the bucket of chicken incident which was chairman malpractice in hindsight. The speaker full speed ahead it is agenda all the way. And they also know this speaker does not get enough credit for her use of political power. We always talk about President Trump having his party within his grip. Democrats privately constantly tell me Speaker Pelosi is the tough presence inside of the Democratic Party holding back this Committee Chairman and rank and file saying focus on 2020. Focus on the swing state infrastructure, economy, health care, pursuing every kind of oversight possible but not giving republicans the political things they need to impeach. She brought them back from the wilderness. Wins in 06, losing the gavel in 10, comes back years later. They dont have any other figure to trust on the big picture strategy other than speaker pa pelosi. Great point. Carol, to your bailiwick, is that something they can still have and hold and bring out later . Absolutely, brian. They did even though it was 12 pages of legal arguments, they avoided that assertion which has to be formally made by the president. In a way, that is just putting down the court the ultimate reckoning and the fight. If youre going to assert privilege and someone is going to dispute it, then we move quickly to contempt. Well see where this ends up going but i think that bob is exactly right about pelosis political smarts and avoiding the word impeachment. In a way that 12page letter is baiting the democrats. If you really want these records, you know, you can always open an impeachment proceeding because the argument for demanding the records is a lot stronger legally to get them right away in that setting but pelosi is holding them back saying we dont have an American Public that is convinced that is the way to go. And as she says, trump in her view will selfimpeach with his own actions and with democrats trying to criticize him all the way until november. Maya wiley, speaking of baiting the democrats, im going to play something for you from the chairman of the senate Judiciary Committee. What you see happening is congressional committees are now beginning to take the place of prosecutors and thats dangerous for us all and if i were don juniors lawyer i would be reluctant to put him on the Intel Committee in the Senate Running for president of the united states. Its just a wednesday in 2019 repeated signals from the chairman of senate Judiciary Committee to the son of the president , dont respond to the subpoena, dont you dare come back here. Right. The lesson from the don jr. Subpoena from senate intel is, fight like hell despite the fact you have no legal grounds. You are a private citizen. You, too, can thwart congress and you can thwart Congress Despite the fact there is a Public Record that suggests you lied directly. And were not talking about russia now. Were talking about you lied to congress when you said you were not aware that other countries foreign governments were trying to support the campaign of donald trump when he met in august 2016 with a representative representing saudi arabia and united arab emirates, that was pledging support for the campaign, foreign nationals trying to find ways to influence a campaign, that is not, you cant even make an argument that that falls under the Mueller Investigation and you cannot make an argument that donald trump junior is a part of the white house. What we have seen is a white house that has not just overstepped on and fundamentally undermined a Constitutional Order established by the founders of this country, we have this now extending into private citizenry. Thwarting congress, even when there is evidence of perjury winning that round and here is why i think so much of the Democratic Base that is really quite frankly concerned about not having impeachment putting aside the very important political prowess of nancy pelosi, if not now when . When in this country does congress say politics aside, we have to protect the Constitutional Order and the prerogatives of congress. And i think this is a perfect example of where that example arises. Jonathan lamere, lets take up that last point. Rick wilson was on this network. Weve had him on this broadcast before. His contention is trump is hoping, praying he wont get nicked in the senate. Wanting to run as a victim, wanting to fund raise on it. Its all his Political Social Media life has been predicated on. Knowing him as you do knowing his character as you do, does that much up with known reality . It does. I think that the president himself we know from reporting had conversations with Speaker Pelosi where hes like youre not going impeach me. Right . I think there is some degree of concern that he would be afraid that would be the first line in his political obituary, how hes remembered in the history books even though those around him tactically think that is the best thing to happen to him. Yes, first of all, we known hes born to play the verdict role and sit there and say the system is rigged. The deep state is against me. Look, im being treated unfairly. We heard that time and time again with the candidate and commander in chief but they feel like they can republicans feel like they can go to the democrats into this. They think if they do commence with impeachment talk and proceedings, they can say look, this is overreach. This is special counsel mueller did not come back with a guilty verdict and youre still going down the lines and feel like the American People will get tired of this and fatigued and start to take the president s side and feel like that the the best way he can run. He can raise money and barn storm against it and say look at the economy and what ive done yet they are still trying to unfairly bring me down. So thats a fight the white house absolutely wants. Robert costa, youve been elected to deliver the last word. Take us to commercial break and that is where are we tonight in this administration keeping in mind trade war with china, threats of a hot war with iran, which is our very next segment. Lets not forget things like venezuela, lets not forget the coming reelection fight. We used to talk in 2017 about who is in the president s ear, steve bannon, jared kushner, someone else in congress at the time. Based on my reporting and conversations, its the president alone driving the trade discussions, hold the line, even if the market feels a lot of unease, hold the line, listen to Peter Navarro but its really about the president moving forward on that on foreign policy, a hawk is in his ear but the president is saying im not really keen to do intervention at this time in venezuela or iran and when it comes to the dealings with congress, fight them all, reject everything. Its President Trump just like he was in that 26th floor of trump tower directing the scene. Robert costa and the