White House Counsel Pat Cipollone balked at the House Oversight Committee’s demand for information specific to Jared Kushner. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images White House White House tells Dems it won't hand over Kushner security clearance docs

The top White House lawyer on Tuesday said the Trump administration will refuse to provide Congress with information about senior adviser Jared Kushner’s security clearance, slamming House Democrats for “overly intrusive document requests.”

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said the administration would brief the House Oversight Committee about the White House’s process for granting security clearances, but he balked at the committee’s demand for information specific to Kushner, setting up a potential subpoena fight between the powerful House panel and the White House.


“These actions suggest that the Committee is not interested in proper oversight, but rather seeks information that it knows cannot be provided consistent with applicable law,” Cipollone wrote in a letter to Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings. “We will not concede the Executive's constitutional prerogatives or allow the Committee to jeopardize the individual privacy rights of current and former Executive Branch employees.”

In response, Cummings (D-Md.) said Cipollone “appears to be arguing that Congress has no authority to examine decisions by the Executive Branch that impact our national security.”

“The White House’s argument defies the constitutional separation of powers, decades of precedent before this committee, and just plain common sense,” the chairman added.

Cummings has accused the White House of stonewalling their demand for information, and of engaging in “repeated, significant, and ongoing abuses of the security clearance system.”

Last week he expanded the committee’s investigation into the clearance process after The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump ordered his former chief of staff to grant Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, a full security clearance despite reservations from intelligence officials.

In a New York Times interview last month, Trump said he never intervened in order to secure a full security clearance for Kushner, saying he “never thought it was necessary.”

Cummings said last week that the White House would have one final chance to comply with his requests for documents and witness interviews before issuing subpoenas, and on Tuesday he said he would consult with lawmakers about his next steps.