WASHINGTON — Congress and the Biden administration said they have reached an “agreement in principle” to settle a legal dispute over Democrats’ subpoena for the testimony of former White House Counsel Donald McGahn.
In a joint court filing on Tuesday, the two sides said they’d agreed on an “accommodation” without specifying what the deal would entail. The legal dispute stemmed from McGahn’s refusal to comply with a subpoena from Congressional Democrats seeking to force him to testify about Russian interference during the 2016 election.
Congress sued to enforce the subpoena, leading to a long-running legal battle that has bounced back and forth in the federal court system. Since the Biden administration took over, Congress and the White House have been in negotiations out of court over a potential settlement.
Former President Donald Trump, who is not a party to Congress’s lawsuit against McGahn, is also not a party to the agreement in principle, according to the filing.
In the filing with the U.S. appeals court in Washington, Congress and the Biden administration said they’d soon file a motion asking the court to remove the case from its argument calendar. The court was scheduled to hear arguments next week.
Emails to lawyers for Congress and McGahn weren’t immediately returned.
The case is Committee on the Judiciary v. McGahn, 19-5331, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, District of Columbia (Washington).
