I’ve long said (w/ others) that the WH and especially the president are astoundingly, even historically, weak in their ability to assert executive power to control what happens within the administration. The Executive branch response to the impeachment inquiry is revealing.
On 10-8, WHC Cipollone said that to avoid “lasting institutional harm on the Executive Branch and lasting damage to the separation of power, Trump *cannot permit his Administration to participate in this partisan inquiry under these circumstances*.”
https://assets.documentcloud.org/doc...10-08-2019.pdf
This was, like many Trumpian threats, empty. In the last few weeks we have seen former and, more amazingly, current officials of the Trump administration appearing before Congress to discuss intimate presidential conversations related to core presidential responsibilities.
Yovanovitch, Kent, Cooper, Taylor, and Sondland, all current executive officials, have testified to the president’s detriment on Ukraine matter and in defiance of WH instructions not to cooperate. I think Vidman defied the WH as well, but cannot confirm that.
This is a really remarkable breakdown of soft and hard presidential power. Congress might have legal authority to access some of this info. It’s a complicated question how much. But the WH isn't even putting up a fight.
The WH is asserting no legal authorities, and does not appear even to be trying to manage what executive officials can and cannot say. The WH has no juice, no tools. The Cipollone letter was pure bluster. In so, so many ways, Trump is a weak, not a strong, president.
Jack Goldsmith
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device