Top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday that a judge’s ruling to force former White House Counsel Don McGahn to testify in the House impeachment inquiry “may not be sustainable.”
Mrs. Conway told reporters at the White House that “nobody was surprised” by the ruling Monday from U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and that the Justice Department will appeal.
“This is one judge, an Obama-appointed judge,” she said, adding that the ruling “may not be sustainable.”
The judge decided that Mr. McGahn must testify in the House impeachment investigation, undercutting an order from President Trump blocking his cooperation with Congress.
The ruling said that ignoring a congressional subpoena is “an affront to the mechanism for curbing abuses that the framers carefully crafted for our protection.”
The president had invoked “absolute immunity” to shield witnesses from testifying in the Democrats’ impeachment probe.
SEE ALSO: Don McGahn must comply with subpoena and testify, federal judge rules
Mr. Trump said on Twitter Tuesday that he would “love” to have Mr. McGahn and other high-ranking administration officials testify, but he’s “fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President.”
“Future Presidents should in no way be compromised,” Mr. Trump said. “What has happened to me should never happen to another President!”
He said his critics “are reading far too much into people being forced by Courts to testify before Congress.”
“I would actually like people to testify. Don McGahn [is a] respected lawyer has already stated that I did nothing wrong,” he said. “Likewise, I would love to have Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and many others testify about the phony Impeachment Hoax. It is a Democrat Scam that is going nowhere…”
The ruling also could pave the way for other impeachment witnesses who have sought to duck congressional investigators. One potential key witness, former National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, said he would not testify unless a court ordered him to do so.
The president said in an apparent message to Mr. Bolton, “John Bolton is a patriot and may know that I held back the money from Ukraine because it is considered a corrupt country, & I wanted to know why nearby European countries weren’t putting up money also.”
Mr. Bolton tweeted later in the day, “It probably goes without saying, that our country’s commitment to our national security priorities is under attack from within. America is distracted. Our enemies are not. We need to make U.S. national security a priority.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asked by a reporter Tuesday if he would testify in the impeachment inquiry, replied, “When the time is right, all good things happen.”
• Jeff Mordock contributed to this story.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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