The Washington Post reports that officials from the Office of Management and Budget will refuse to answer subpoenas from the House impeachment inquiry to build a “firewall” against impeachment as Trump is reportedly furious at other aides who have denied his order for them to refuse to appear and agreed to testify for the committee.





Russell Vought, a Mulvaney protege who leads the White House Office of Management and Budget, intends a concerted defiance of congressional subpoenas in coming days, and two of his subordinates will follow suit — simultaneously proving their loyalty to the president and creating a potentially critical firewall regarding the alleged use of foreign aid to elicit political favors from a U.S. ally.

The OMB is at the nexus of the impeachment inquiry because Democrats are pressing for details about why the White House budget office effectively froze the Ukraine funds that Congress had already appropriated.

Congressional Republicans are also predicting that Mulvaney’s deputy, Robert Blair, will refuse to show for his scheduled Monday appearance before impeachment investigators — though a White House spokesman and Blair’s attorney, Whit Ellerman, did not respond to questions about his plans. Blair was on the July 25 phone call when Trump asked Ukraine’s president for a “favor” investigating former vice president Joe Biden, a 2020 presidential contender.

The anticipated defiance toward impeachment investigators comes as Trump has grown enraged that so many of his “employees,” as he refers to them, are going to Capitol Hill and testifying, said a person who regularly talks with him and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The president has asked for copies of witness statements so he can decide how to criticize them, complained that his lawyers are not doing enough to stop people from talking, and even encouraged members of Congress to question the credibility of people working in his own administration, current and former officials said.