The White House on Thursday rejected congressional Democrats’ demands for documents relating to President Donald Trump’s private discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin — escalating tensions between the Trump administration and Congress over a crucial piece of Democrats’ oversight ambitions.

“The committees’ letters cite no legal authority for the proposition that another branch of the government can force the president to disclose diplomatic communications with foreign leaders or that supports forcing disclosure of the confidential internal deliberations of the president’s national security advisors,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a letter obtained by POLITICO to the chairmen of three House committees seeking documents and witness interviews.


In his letter to Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), and Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Cipollone cited precedents going back to the George Washington and Bill Clinton administrations to assert Trump’s authority to conduct foreign affairs, and to argue that Congress has no right to information about one-on-one conversations between the president and a foreign leader.

“It is settled law that the Constitution entrusts the conduct of foreign relations exclusively to the Executive Branch, as it makes the President ‘the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations,’” Cipollone wrote.

Cipollone also argued that Congress’ demand for information about a president’s private conversations with foreign leaders could jeopardize similar talks involving future American presidents.

“The president must be free to engage in discussions with foreign leaders without fear that those communications will be disclosed and used as fodder for partisan political purposes. And foreign leaders must be assured of this as well,” Cipollone wrote. “No foreign leader would engage in private conversations with the president, or the president’s senior advisors, if such conversations were subject to public disclosure (or disclosure to committees of Congress).”


The three House Democratic chairman had demanded earlier this month that the White House and the State Department turn over, by last Friday, “all documents and communications, regardless of form and classification, that refer or relate to any communications between President Trump and President Putin, including in-person meetings and telephone calls.”

That deadline came and went without a response from the White House. Administration officials have adopted a hardline approach to the myriad congressional investigations, often ignoring the committees’ deadlines altogether.

But investigating Trump’s ties to Russia is a top priority for Democrats under their new House majority, and they’ve left all options on the table — including subpoenas — to try to force the White House’s compliance.

Democrats were particularly incensed with the president’s posture toward Moscow when he suggested last July after speaking with Putin in Helsinki that he believed the Russian president’s forceful denials of interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats argue that despite some precedents that protect the privacy of a president’s conversations with foreign leaders, Trump’s interactions with Putin might determine whether the Kremlin has “leverage” over the U.S. president.


Lawmakers openly acknowledge the difficulty of obtaining such sensitive information from an executive branch that has vowed to fight Democratic oversight demands, but they’re moving methodically to make their case.

Schiff and Engel have been consulting with House General Counsel Douglas Letter about the best ways to legally compel information about Trump’s private conversations with Putin.

Schiff, Engel and Cummings released a joint statement later Thursday condemning the White House for what they called its “troubling pattern ... of rejecting legitimate and necessary congressional oversight with no regard for precedent or the Constitution.” They also said the Obama administration produced documents about the then-president’s conversations with foreign heads of state, adding: “President Trump’s decision to break with this precedent raises the question of what he has to hide.”

The chairmen said they would consult with one another on their next steps.

The March 4 letters to the White House and State Department were among the chairmen’s first voluntary requests for documents and witness interviews pertaining to the committees’ wide-ranging investigations.

The chairmen have not ruled out the possibility of issuing subpoenas, and Democrats have in the past demanded to speak with the State Department interpreter who was present for some of Trump’s private conversations with Putin.