COURTS/LEGAL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Critics of President Trump cheered on Monday [12-25-19] when a federal judge ruled that the former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II must testify to Congress — and scathingly labeled ‘fiction’ the administration’s arguments that top White House aides are immune from congressional subpoenas. Indeed, the outcome was the latest in a string of lower-court losses for Mr. Trump as he defends his stonewalling of lawmakers’ oversight and the impeachment investigation. Other fights are playing out in the courts over Mr. Trump’s financial records and grand-jury evidence in the Russia investigation. But from a realist perspective, Mr. Trump is winning despite losing. That is because it is now late November — not May, when Mr. McGahn, on Mr. Trump’s directions, first defied the subpoena, or even August, when the House asked the judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson, to enforce its subpoena.”
–Charlie Savage, “Trump Keeps Losing in Court. But His Legal Strategy Is Winning Anyway.,” The New York Times online, November 27, 2019