Author: Stephen Collinson / Source: CNN
(CNN)A clarifying week in Washington showed how ugly the war of oversight between President Donald Trump and House Democrats will become and dug new battle lines in the most intense exchanges yet of the 2020 campaign.
House Democrats swung their investigative machinery into action in the most searching examination of the Trump White House so far, showing that the special counsel’s probe is only one of the President’s concerns.
The administration and its allies made clear they will do everything possible to frustrate Democratic oversight efforts, in a way that will test the constitutional infrastructure designed to hold the executive branch to account.
In his State of the Union address, meanwhile, Trump laid out his clearest thematic blueprint yet for his re-election bid. The President proclaimed that an economic “miracle” was underway and mixed scalding rhetoric on immigration with claims that Democrats are marching left toward socialism.
And Democrats are blitzing early-voting states this weekend, reflecting their belief that a President under a legal and political siege could be vulnerable next year, despite his ruthless campaigning style.
The most serious potential development for Trump came with the expansion of the House Intelligence Committee investigation beyond Russia, which likely means special counsel Robert Mueller’s report will not end the President’s trouble over Russia.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff announced that he would also look at whether any business ties between Trump and Saudi Arabia or any other nation were creating leverage over the administration’s foreign policy.
The move added another layer of peril for a President who is seeing his campaign, inauguration, transition, presidency and past business career under the scrutiny of civil, political and criminal investigations.
It quickly became clear during the week that the commander in chief, who experienced only the most cursory oversight when Republicans ran both sides of Capitol Hill, is not enjoying his first taste of the new Democratic–led House.
Trump sought to paint Schiff’s move as the kind of “ridiculous, partisan investigations” he had decried in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. He charged in a tweet that the California Democrat was poring through “every aspect of my life, both financial and personal, even though there is no reason to be doing so … Unlimited Presidential Harassment.”
Other Republicans are beginning to adopt the line that Democrats are motivated not by fulfilling their constitutional duties to hold an administration to account but instead by their personal animosity toward the President.
The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, told acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker on Friday he was simply a pawn in a Democratic circus as he showed up to testify.
“No, we want to damage the President. We want to talk about your private conversations,” Collins said, paraphrasing what he said was the Democratic strategy.
“I’m thinking about maybe we should just set up a popcorn machine in the back, because that’s what this is becoming. It’s becoming a show,” Collins said.
The Whitaker appearance was in doubt up until Thursday night after…
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