The House Judiciary Committee will subpoena former White House staff secretary Rob Porter as part of its probe into President Trumpโs alleged attempts to obstruct special counsel Robert Muellerโs investigation, Politico reported Monday.
Porter, who resigned last year amid allegations of domestic abuse, served as a close confidante to the president during the Mueller probe and, as such, might be a valuable witness for House Democrats seeking to expose Trumpโs misconduct as they weigh whether to begin impeachment proceedings.
The White House has thus far blocked senior White House officials from complying with lawmakersโ oversight requests, asserting that high-level officials enjoy โabsolute immunityโ from testifying before Congress. That claim is now being challenged in the courts by Democrats seeking testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn.
Porter is mentioned multiple times in the Mueller report. In one section that will likely be of particular interest to lawmakers, the report details how Trump asked Porter to speak with senior Department of Justice official Rachel Brand about supervising the Mueller probe as a corrective to attorney general Jeff Sessionsโs recusal.
The former White House aide never carried out the presidentโs request โbecause he was sensitive to the implications of that action and did not want to be involved in a chain of events associated with an effort to end the investigation or fire the special counsel,โ according to the report.
Porter was also present for, and took contemporaneous notes related to, Trumpโs repeated diatribes against McGahn. According to the Mueller report, some of those rants included threats to fire the White House lawyer over his adherence to a policy of cooperation of with the special counselโs office, and his refusal to author a dishonest letter falsely denying a New York Times report that indicated the president ordered him to fire Mueller.







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