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A power struggle within the White House has defenders of acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney accusing White House counsel Pat Cipollone's office of causing the impeachment crisis threatening President Trump. Cipollone must explain when he learned of concerns about Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's president and explain why he did not take action to mitigate them, Mulvaney allies told the Washington Examiner. Two White House officials said they believe incompetence by Cipollone may have allowed concerns about the call to mount while most other White House staff were in the dark about the problem until September.

Mick Mulvaney's stumble on impeachment messaging has his supporters turning fire on White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who sources say is viewed within the White House as having a "shelter-in-place bunker mentality" that undermines effective pushback against Democrats. "There's an open feud between Pat and those who want to fight and defend the president in White House, and Mick is the face of it," a White House official told the Washington Examiner, defending the acting chief of staff. Cipollone "is not the person you want to lead a political fight. He's a civil attorney without a political bone in his...

President Trump has directed former White House Counsel Don McGahn to skip a House Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for Tuesday, citing a Justice Department opinion that he cannot be compelled to testify about his official duties. In a statement released Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders blasted Democrats for continuing to pursue Trump investigations, saying they want a "wasteful and unnecessary do-over" in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe -- and describing the subpoena for McGahn as part of that. "The House Judiciary Committee has issued a subpoena to try and force Mr. McGahn to testify...

White House letter refusing McGahn's testimony to Congress White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) released by the White House

...When my assistant said there was a call from the White House, I picked up, said "Hello" and started to ask if this was a prank (suspecting my friends in the British tabloid media), but the caller spoke politely over me: "Please hold for the president." Two seconds later probably the best-known voice in the world said "Is that the great Lord Black?" I said "Mr. President, you do me great honour telephoning me." He could not have been more gracious and quickly got to his point: he was granting me a full pardon that would "Expunge the bad wrap...

he White House’s top lawyer told the House Judiciary Committee chairman Wednesday that Congress has no right to a “do-over” of the special counsel’s investigation of President Trump and refused a broad demand for records and testimony from dozens of current and former White House staff. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s letter to committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) constitutes a sweeping rejection — not just of Nadler’s request for White House records, but of Congress’s standing to investigate Trump for possible obstruction of justice. In his letter, Cipollone repeated a claim the White House and Trump’s business have begun making:...

President Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner used the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp as well as his personal email account to conduct official business, a top House Democrat charged Thursday. The revelation came during a Dec. 19 meeting of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which released the information in a letter Thursday. Chairman Elijah Cummings wrote to White House counsel Pat Cipollone to tell him that Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had confirmed during the meeting that Kushner “continues to use” WhatsApp to conduct White House business.

The war we all knew would happen has begun between an increasingly combative Trump administration and House Democrats fixated on investigating the president in every way, shape, and form possible, just because they can. On Thursday, White House counsel Pat Cipollone rejected Democrats’ demands for documents related to one-on-one meetings between POTUS Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin (yes, the “Russian collusion” hoax again). Specifically, Democrats on the House Intelligence, Government Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees want details of the president’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki, Finland in July 2018. The thinking among Democrats — if we can call...

Conservatives warned the White House on Wednesday against striking a deal with California’s two Democratic senators to water down President Trump’s judicial picks for the West Coast’s federal appeals court. Sen. David Perdue, a Georgia Republican close to Mr. Trump, said he will call and try to scuttle the negotiations, reported by The Wall Street Journal, that would have the White House pick one conservative, one consensus nominee and one liberal nominee for three openings on the already liberal U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. “Why do we need to do a deal? This is totally within our purview. We...