Voters should see Trump’s contemptuous conduct for what it is: evidence of guilt

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/15/voters-should-see-trumps-contemptuous-conduct-what-it-is-evidence-guilt/?fbclid=IwAR1u7BV6bGM8U9SpKXfB3z5df2eVk-WALMzSwnG6CBJ_3ZoIIHOhyKDIfzk&utm_term=.27a92507757e
"The notion that Congress does not have the right to investigate matters plainly within its purview — and which are essential to determining whether impeachment hearings will be appropriate — flies in the face of the Constitution and our system of checks and balances. Even lawyer John Yoo, who has an expansive view of executive power, says such blanket rejection of Congress’s role is “unprecedented.” Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tells me, “The House has full power of impeachment under the Constitution and (Trump’s staffers] are withholding evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the president. If they can get away with doing that, the president — now and in the future — can break the law without fear of consequences.” Likewise, constitutional scholar Laurence H. Tribe explains, “The White House Counsel is now taking the same astonishing position that Trump’s personal attorney took with Judge [Amit] Mehta yesterday — the position that the federal judge presiding over that subpoena hearing rightly found unbelievable and is bound to reject.” Tribe notes, “As a strictly legal matter, the position is one the US Supreme Court decisively repudiated decades ago: it’s the position that the only permissible role of congressional investigations is to help in enacting legislation. If that were the law, then Congress could do nothing at all to oversee how well or badly — including how honesty or corruptly — its laws are being enforced and administered, to ferret out waste, fraud, and abuse by federal agencies or in the executive office of the president.” He concludes: “The administration’s argument comes down to Louis XIV’s ‘L’etat, c’est moi!’ ” Second, making bogus, unsubstantiated arguments to Congress violates the code of ethics that all lawyers, especially prosecutors, must follow."