President Donald J. Trump’s former White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday about whether Mr. Trump obstructed the Russia investigation, bringing to a close a long legal and political battle.
The fact that Mr. McGahn is talking to Congress at all is significant after a multiyear legal battle by the Trump Justice Department to block a subpoena for his testimony. That dispute ended last month when the Biden Justice Department, House Democrats and a lawyer for Mr. McGahn reached a compromise.
Under that deal, Mr. McGahn’s appearance may yield little in terms of new revelations. He will testify behind closed doors and will have up to a week to review a transcript for accuracy before it is made public. He also may be questioned only about his involvement in matters that are described in the publicly available portions of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
Still, Mr. McGahn is likely to be asked to respond under oath to Mr. Trump’s public denial of events that were described in the report based in part on what Mr. McGahn told Mr. Mueller’s investigators, including that Mr. Trump had ordered him to have Mr. Mueller fired — a step Mr. McGahn said he refused to take.
Congress is out of session this week, and members must be physically present to participate, so the full committee is not expected to attend. While those who do will have the right to ask questions, Mr. McGahn is expected to be questioned primarily by committee staffers. He will be accompanied by his lawyer, William A. Burck.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
