Here's how the White House might try to block Mueller from testifying
President Trump really doesn't want Special Counsel Robert Mueller to testify before Congress, and the White House may have one last trick up its sleeve to prevent that from happening.
Last week, White House lawyer Emmet Flood sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr advising him not to provide Congress with any more information regarding Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference. But the letter also hit on an important piece of information that skirted under the radar last week. Flood writes that Trump administration officials who interviewed with Mueller's team of investigators did not, in fact, waive executive privilege.
Instead, the letter argues that the officials and Mueller's office agreed to an understanding that information gleaned from the White House was "presumptively privileged" because it could have been the subject of a potential executive privilege claim.
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It sounds like a stretch and there is not currently anything else that verifies this agreement between the two sides, but with Mueller tentatively set to appear before Congress on May 15, the White House could try to block the special counsel's testimony using "presumptive privilege" as a shield.
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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
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