President Donald J. Trump’s former White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, began testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday about whether Mr. Trump obstructed the Russia investigation, bringing to a close a long legal and political battle.
The fact that Mr. McGahn is talking to Congress at all is significant after a multiyear legal battle by the Trump Justice Department to block a subpoena for his testimony. That dispute ended last month when the Biden Justice Department, House Democrats and a lawyer for Mr. McGahn reached a compromise.
“We worked a long time to ensure that the Congress has a right of oversight, and has the respect and responsibility to secure from the executive information that is needed for the Congress to do its job,” Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, told reporters outside the hearing room.
Under that deal, Mr. McGahn’s appearance may yield little in terms of new revelations. He testified behind closed doors and will have up to a week to review a transcript for accuracy before it is made public. He also may be questioned only about his involvement in matters that are described in the publicly available portions of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
Still, Mr. McGahn is likely to be asked to respond under oath to Mr. Trump’s public denial of events that were described in the report based in part on what Mr. McGahn told Mr. Mueller’s investigators, including that Mr. Trump had ordered him to have Mr. Mueller fired — a step Mr. McGahn said he refused to take.
Ms. Jackson Lee said that Mr. McGahn’s testimony would be important in helping the House understand “more deeply how invested in undermining national security was Donald Trump.”
Congress is out of session this week, and members must be physically present to participate, so the full committee is not expected to attend. While those who did have the right to ask questions, Mr. McGahn was questioned primarily by committee staffers. He was accompanied by his lawyer, William A. Burck.
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