This is actually a smart move - Mulvaney asking the court if his boss, the president, is wrong by telling him not to testify. Here’s why: in the rapidly approaching post-Trump era, when Barr is gone and a law-abiding attorney general takes his place, prosecutorial decisions
will have to be made about which criminals to charge. Among those who will need to be charged are the people who failed to comply w/congressional subpoenas. Those people must be charged as part of our effort to restore lawfulness to our government, balance among the branches and
respect for our institutions. However, people who opted to seek the court’s assistance in sorting out whether they must testify pursuant to a congressional subpoena or must obey the president who has ordered them not to testify, will have a potential defense to criminal contempt.
They’ll argue that they didn’t just ignore/blow-off the congressional subpoena but rather sought a court ruling to break the “tie” between the branches (I’m not suggesting there really is a tie, but that, in substance, is what’s being argued in the current subpoena-battle cases).
This will make it less likely that those people will be charged with contempt of Congress. This is just one of matters that MUST be address post-Trump when we launch the critically important cleanup & reform mission designed to hold accountable those who committed crimes to
assist and enable Trump. We must not pretend that “forgiving and forgetting” will “help the country heal.” It didn’t when we last pardoned a criminal president - Nixon - and it won’t in the future. If we don’t hold Trump and his enablers accountable
it will give birth to someone even worse next time. Can our country survive someone even worse than Trump? #TrumpCrimesCommission #TCC
