I have corrected it, over to you now.
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https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obe...ness-impeachment-probe-asks/story?id=66636082
Attorneys representing the House condemned the Justice Department for its "attempt to delay" proceedings and notified the court of its intention to file a motion to dismiss the suit by next Tuesday. Justice Department lawyers also said they intend to file a motion to dismiss.
The case is the latest twist in White House efforts to block all former and current administration officials from testifying or otherwise cooperating with the Democrat-led probe.
Kupperman was subpoenaed by House Democrats on Friday. The White House, however, has maintained that Kupperman is entitled to what it calls constitutional immunity, arguing, "Congress may not constitutionally compel the president's senior advisers to testify about their official duties" due to the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...-to-people-familiar-with-his-views/ar-BBWq6CC
While other officials have complied with requests to participate in the impeachment inquiry without such a judicial order, Bolton is not willing to do so, the people said. NBC first reported that Bolton is willing to testify if the courts order his former deputy to comply with a congressional subpoena.
House Democrats requested Bolton’s appearance at a closed-door deposition Thursday, but he did not attend. He has not been issued a subpoena.
A House Intelligence Committee official said that Bolton’s attorney informed the committee that Bolton would go to court if he were subpoenaed.
“We regret Mr. Bolton’s decision not to appear voluntarily, but we have no interest in allowing the administration to play rope-a-dope with us in the courts for months,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. “Rather, the White House instruction that he not appear will add to the evidence of the president’s obstruction of Congress.”
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opini...hand-witnesses-editorials-debates/4195846002/
The rationale for the stonewalling is supposedly laid out in a letter White House counsel Pat Cipollone sent to Congress last month. The "due process" argument in that letter, however, has been superseded by events. A vote to authorize the inquiry has been taken, and once-private proceedings are now public.
Much of the rest of the rationale is baffling, unsupported or circular in logic. It declares the inquiry to be invalid because testimony provided by credible witnesses under oath consists of “falsehoods and misinformation.” It declares that Democrats fear they will lose the next election. And it throws in references to the Framers and the Constitution much like a high school student might do in hopes of getting a passing grade on an otherwise incomprehensible term paper.
So basically, to summarise, The White House ordered everyone not testify, and some like Kupperman, and then Bolton went to court to get a judge to decide on whether they should testify or not.
So to answer your point 3, once those involved had refused to testify to Congress after being officially invited to, the next route is subpeonas which would have been challenged in court immediately . As many Dems at the time pointed out though, this would start a long and protracted legal battle which could have taken months, if not years and would have no doubt made it all the way to the Supreme Court. This would have been a pointless waste of time and there is even massive precedent from the Nixon impeachment that utterly undermines the White House's claim to absolute immunity and their use of executive privilege to block everything from Congress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_process_against_Richard_Nixon
"In a much-anticipated landmark ruling on July 24, 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered President Nixon to release all White House tapes, not just selected transcripts, pertinent to the Watergate investigation.
The unanimous ruling in United States v. Nixon found that the president of the United States does not possess an absolute, unqualified executive privilege to withhold information.[7][137] Writing for the court, Chief Justice Warren Burger stated:"
So the Dems instead decided that their case for abuse of power was already strong enough without these testimonies, and no doubt as it was a matter of national security and they want him removed from office, the sooner the better. With all this stonewalling, the obstruction of congress article of impeachment writes itself...
As expected though, the Republicans wont even begin to think about removing him unless there are multiple people who were high in Trump's circle/cabinet who testify against him. That is why the Dems now need to try and get the power of the senate and this trial to subpeona more witnesses.This is even more important now that we know what Lev and Bolton know. Those two must testify under oath.
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