Stonewalled

Last week I wrote about how Hope Hicks, Donald Trump's former senior aide, had agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday. That sounded like a positive development.

The reality turned out to be far different (details here). When she appeared to testify yesterday, a White House attorney and a Department of Justice attorney appeared at her side during the hearing and prevented her from answering any questions about her work for the President after his inauguration, claiming "executive privilege" over everything, including questions as innocuous as where her desk was located in the West Wing.

"Her refusal to answer questions is based on this very bogus immunity, sort of newly invented, very broad immunity, that you can never be asked anything about anything you ever did while you worked for the president, which is an absurdity," said David Cicilline to reporters. "This will ultimately be decided by a court."

Trump almost certainly has been told that legal precedent is strongly against him on these points. But he's trying to run out the clock. He probably knows he can't forever stop the testimony, but he's trying to drag it out as long as possible, perhaps hoping public interest will died down.

This kind of stonewalling, however, may help push more members of Congress off the fence and onto the impeachment bandwagon. The Democratic leadership is resisting that for now, but if the number of supporters continues to rise to a certain level, they will almost certainly reconsider their position.