House Democrats warn that getting the Trump administration to cooperate with their investigations is a matter of life-or-death for American democracy. A number of legal and political experts agree. But lawmakers are fighting an uneven battle, they warn, one that favors President Trump. Congress has chipped away at its own power for decades, leaving the executive branch disproportionately strong. And now they’re facing off against a president willing to use every tool he’s got to flout them. Here’s a look at the perfect storm of reasons Congress will struggle to get what it wants from Trump. If they lose, legal experts warn, it could exacerbate Congress’s weakness for years to come: Congress has been ceding power to the executive branch since World War II. This comes in many forms, said Sarah Binder, a congressional expert and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. A notable one is that Congress created agencies such as the CIA or the National Security Agency, then delegated power and oversight to the president, which in turn gives the White House more resources for standoffs against Congress. “It bolsters the president’s ability to get what he wants,” Binder said, “because it’s hard to challenge the president because the president has more information.” And once you give a branch of government more power, it's very difficult to take it back. Congress is a coequal branch, yes, but it’s also the messiest one. In its purest form, Congress has 535 bosses all with different constituents and thus different priorities. The executive branch has one boss and thousands of people working to help him or her fulfill an agenda. "Wrangling all those cats to look like a branch of government that can exert authority vis-a-vis the other branches is just a more complicated endeavor than the executive branch,” said Jennifer Victor, a political science professor at George Mason University. House Democrats have to go it alone with holding Trump accountable, because partisanship. We’ve been talking about Congress as an institution going up against the president, but really it’s just one party in one chamber of Congress that is willing to do anything. Democrats control the majority in the House of Representatives and thus the committees that are issuing subpoenas for people and information within the Trump administration. They’re investigating everything from Trump’s business practices before the White House to whether he obstructed the special counsel probe into Russian election interference once he became president. But Trump has the Republican-controlled Senate and Republicans in the House to block for him. They have been holding news conferences to defend the president, using powerful platforms to share misleading information about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report and using legislative stalling to drag out the investigatory process as best they can. It’s not unusual for the party of the president to defend said president, but Trump has a particularly strong grip on the Republican Party. That only strengthens his hand. Trump is thwarting Congress more than any other recent president. There’s always been a natural tension between Congress’s oversight authority into the White House. In past administrations that’s manifested in George W. Bush fighting information about investigations into firing of U.S. attorneys or Barack Obama refusing to have his attorney general testify about a gun-drug-trafficking program. But that wrangling happened over just one or two disputes. Trump’s refusal to hand over anything related to any congressional investigation is unlike any other president in modern memory, said Josh Chafetz, a constitutional expert on Congress at Cornell Law. Democrats are typically less inclined than Republicans to take big political risks. Democrats have options to flex back. They are considering voting to hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress for not showing up to a hearing. House Speaker Nancy D. Pelosi (D-Calif.) is using language that sounds like she’s open to Congress impeaching Barr. Some Democrats want to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump himself. But all of these carry political risks. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that a majority of Americans oppose impeaching Trump even though most Americans believe he lied. And Victor said that traditionally, Democrats are more nervous to play brinkmanship than Republicans when it comes at a political cost. But many legal and legislative experts say Congress may have no choice. Everyone The Fix spoke to said they are genuinely worried about Congress as an institution. If the Trump administration can thwart Congress without any significant repercussions, they could be forging the new norm: an even weaker Congress and a stronger-than-ever presidency. “I don’t normally throw around terms like constitutional crisis,” Binder said, “but that is what’s happening here if Congress can’t stand up for its prerogative as an equal branch.”
House Democrats warn that getting the Trump administration to cooperate with their investigations is a matter of life-or-death for American democracy. But lawmakers are fighting an uneven battle, they warn, one that favors President Trump. Congress has chipped away at its own power for decades, leaving the executive branch disproportionately strong. And now they’re facing off against a president willing to use every tool he’s got to flout them. Congress has been ceding power to the executive branch since World War II. Congress is a coequal branch, yes, but it’s also the messiest one. In its purest form, Congress has 535 bosses all with different constituents and thus different priorities. The executive branch has one boss and thousands of people working to help him or her fulfill an agenda. House Democrats have to go it alone with holding Trump accountable, because partisanship. We’ve been talking about Congress as an institution going up against the president, but really it’s just one party in one chamber of Congress that is willing to do anything. Everyone The Fix spoke to said they are genuinely worried about Congress as an institution. If the Trump administration can thwart Congress without any significant repercussions, they could be forging the new norm: an even weaker Congress and a stronger-than-ever presidency. “I don’t normally throw around terms like constitutional crisis,” Binder said, “but that is what’s happening here if Congress can’t stand up for its prerogative as an equal branch.”