Story
House Gets Its First Mueller Deadline Snub
Justice Department inaction on the Mueller report pushed House Democrats toward subpoenas and escalated the fight over what Congress was going to see and when.
Edition · April 2, 2019
The Daily Fuckup: April 2, 2019
A backfill edition on the day Trump’s world turned subpoenas into a full-time hobby and the House started acting like it had had enough.
On April 2, 2019, the Trump universe racked up a pile of self-inflicted legal and political headaches. House Democrats moved closer to forcing the release of the Mueller report after the Justice Department missed a deadline, while another committee escalated its probe of the administration’s security-clearance mess. It was the kind of day when the White House’s favorite strategy — stonewall first, explain never — started producing not strength, but more subpoenas and a lot of bad optics.
Closing take
The through-line on April 2 was simple: Trump-world kept testing how much Congress would tolerate, and Congress kept answering with more formal pressure. None of these fights was over yet, but the day added to a pattern that was becoming impossible to miss — a White House and its orbit treating oversight like an annoyance, and oversight responding by getting meaner, more organized, and more public.
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Story
House Moves To Subpoena Trump’s Security-Clearance Crew
A House committee escalated its probe into the Trump administration’s security-clearance process, signaling that the White House’s resistance was now producing subpoenas, not patience.