Yet, perhaps even more remarkably, Reyes seemed inclined to support DOJās central argument that the line attorneys cannot be compelled to answer substantive questions from Congress.
They just need to show up and assert privileges on a question-by-question basis, she said ā the type of thing, she said, that DOJ demands from others āseven days a week ā¦ and twice on Sunday.ā
Indeed, while Reyes was withering in her attacks on the DOJās position, she was similarly unflinching in her criticism of the House for its stance in the dispute ā particularly its claim that line lawyers working on the Hunter Biden tax probe are not entitled to attorney-client privilege.
She also said she thought it absurd for the House to argue that privilege was waived because it was obscuring some crime or fraud within the executive branch.
āI donāt think youāre going to win that fight,ā the judge told House Counsel Matthew Berry, saying at one point that she ācanāt imagineā ruling for the House on that issue.
At bottom, Reyes said she viewed it as unlikely that the two DOJ attorneys would ultimately be required to answer anything of substance from Congress, but that the departmentās effort to prevent them from showing up at all was a brazen affront.
āI imagine that there are hundreds, if not thousands of defense attorneys ā¦ who would be happy to hear that DOJās position is, if you donāt agree with a subpoena, if you believe itās unconstitutional or unlawful, you can unilaterally not show up,ā the judge said.
Gilligan suggested that the employees subpoenaed in the dispute at issue are current employees, while Navarro and another Trump adviser who was convicted of similar charges, Steve Bannon, were no longer on the governmentās payroll when their testimony was demanded.
The judge didnāt seem impressed with that distinction and downplayed the significance of a Trump-era Office of Legal Counsel opinion contending that executive branch employees could defy such subpoenas if Justice Department lawyers were not allowed to be present. āLast time I checked, the Office of Legal Counsel was not the court,ā she said.