California senator Kamala Harris, one of the leading Democratic candidates to challenge the president in 2020, has said the Justice Department would have little choice but to pursue criminal obstruction charges against Donald Trump if she were elected to the Oval Office.
President Trump has meanwhile lashed out on Twitter suggesting reports about internal polling indicating he might lose next year’s race are “Fake numbers” and the work of the “Fake (Corrupt) News Media”.
In Washington, the House Intelligence Committee is staging a hearing on lessons learned from the Mueller report while the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, is due to appear before the equivalent Senate committee behind closed doors.
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Here’s more on Donald Trump’s decision to assert executive privilege over those controversial Census documents -
Democrat Elijah Cummings described Donald Trump’s decision to invoke executive privilege over controversial Census documents as “another example of the administration’s blanket defiance of Congress” -
As CNN’s Manu Raju notes, the Justice Department’s claims that the census documents “are protected from disclosure by the deliberative process” will likely lead to yet another court battle:
Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege over documents related to his administration’s decision to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census:
Kamala Harris, one of the leading Democrats in the 2020 primaries, has announced her Justice Department would have “no choice” but to prosecute Donald Trump over his alleged obstruction of justice if she were elected.
“I mean look, people might, you know, question why I became a prosecutor. Well, I'll tell you one of the reasons — I believe there should be accountability," the California Democrat and former top prosecutor said on Wednesday in an episode of NPR Politics Podcast.
She added, “Everyone should be held accountable, and the president is not above the law."
"I think the polling got it completely wrong in 2016, I don't think it's right now," Ms Sanders told reporters in what has become a common refrain for the Trump camp.
"I'm not worried about polling," she said after being pressed about Trump internal polling. "The president has an incredible record, he's had tremendous success and we feel very comfortable about where we are as an administration."
"I believe that they would have no choice and that they should, yes," the California senator told the NPR Politics Podcast, pointing to the 10 instances of possible obstruction in Robert Mueller's Russia report
"There has to be accountability," Ms Harris added. "I mean look, people might, you know, question why I became a prosecutor. Well, I'll tell you one of the reasons — I believe there should be accountability. Everyone should be held accountable, and the president is not above the law."
Mr Trump gets beaten by six of the leading Democrats he could face. Mr Biden is obviously the front-runner at the moment so he has the biggest lead.
Joe Biden 53%, Trump 40%
Bernie Sanders 51%, Trump 42%
Kamala Harris 49%, Trump 41%
Elizabeth Warren 49%, Trump 42%
Peter Buttigieg 47%, Trump 42%
Cory Booker 47%, Trump 42%
It follows a story from the New York Times that Mr Trump had asked aides "to deny that his internal polling showed him trailing [Joe] Biden" in a number of states.
As you can, Mr Trump denies that:
He claims that there have been 74,000 requests for tickets to a 20,000-capacity arena.
It is there that the president is expected to formally launch his re-election campaign - which might account for some of the apparent demand
“None of that is really discussed in that fashion in the [Mueller] report, which is basically a report about prosecutorial decision-making. So, we want to flesh out the counterintelligence issues.”
