budget

A quick deal might be in reach, but lawmakers fear Trump will blow it up.

Congressional leaders in both parties are confident they can reach a deal to stave off a funding fiasco this fall — if only President Donald Trump would stay out of the way.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other top lawmakers will huddle with White House budget negotiators Wednesday. It’s the first time in nearly a month Democrats and Republicans will meet, after Trump detonated the discussions over a dispute with Pelosi.

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Trump has already put a damper on the latest round of talks by dangling the threat of mass deportation raids targeting undocumented immigrants, a nonstarter for Democrats. Trump’s harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric, as well as any action that follows, could imperil a bipartisan effort to funnel billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the border, a bad omen for reaching a broader budget deal, according to top lawmakers.

“Trump is the only one who could blow this up,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said. “I think we could easily get a deal between the four caucuses.”

Republicans agree with the second point, even as they approach Trump gingerly.

“We’re closer than we’ve been. Ever. It’s positive. The atmosphere is good,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). “But we have to have the president on board. Otherwise he’ll just veto it.”

At the center of the negotiations is an effort to lift stiff budget caps, avoid a shutdown and potentially raise the debt ceiling — actions that if untaken this year could wreak havoc on the U.S. economy.

Negotiators also are trying to reach a deal to send $4.5 billion in aid to address the humanitarian crisis at the southern border, an effort Trump has again put in jeopardy with his latest saber rattling.

Pelosi called Trump’s latest warning of deportation raids “an act of utter malice and bigotry” but later said she and other congressional leaders are forging ahead with the budget negotiations.

“We’re talking about the caps and parity in those talks and lifting the debt ceiling, which of course we must do,” Pelosi said Tuesday.

Senate Democratic appropriators reached an agreement with Shelby to provide $4.6 billion in humanitarian and security assistance at the border, according to sources familiar with the agreement — a key Trump ask. But Democrats said Trump hasn’t made it easy, and there’s still no sign off from the House Democratic majority.

“Whatever the president tweets, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle listen to him and they follow his lead. So more than once now we’ve almost had a deal on many different things and issues and he’ll go tweet something different and everything grinds to a halt,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said. “He knows the effect of what he’s doing.”

Top lawmakers were on the cusp of a two-year, broad budget agreement last month only to have Trump send the talks off the rails when he stormed out of an infrastructure meeting with Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Trump was enraged Pelosi said he was engaging in a “cover-up” related to the Russia probe and vowed not to negotiate with Democrats until they cease all their oversight and investigations.

But without a bipartisan deal, $126 billion in blunt budget cuts would hit both defense and domestic programs in January.

So acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and acting Budget Director Russ Vought will try again when they sit down with Pelosi, McConnell, Schumer and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Appropriators from both sides of the Capitol will also join.

Shelby visited with Trump earlier this month and showed him charts showing the potential for $71 billion in cuts from the defense budget without action. The president “indicated he understood that and wants to keep working,” Shelby said. Shortly after, Senate Republicans met with Trump administration officials and decided they needed to bring in Pelosi.

Shelby called Pelosi on Friday, then continued negotiations with Schumer and Appropriations ranking member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

Both Democrats and Republicans are already wary of negotiating with Mulvaney — a veteran of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — and Vought, who are advocating internally to stand strong against Democrats’ demands for more domestic spending. And Trump’s latest tweets aren’t helping the outlook on Capitol Hill.

“I’ve said this all along — it’s more strong now than ever — if President Trump stays out of it, we can come to a good budget agreement,” Schumer told reporters Tuesday.

Top Democrats and Republicans agree it is in their mutual interest, and Trump’s, to avert a government shutdown this fall. And lawmakers in both parties worry the time to avoid a fall “meltdown,” as Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) put it, is running out.

“It’s in everybody’s best interest to deal with these issues, both the caps and the debt limit,” Thune said. “Our guys are going to have to be flexible going in; the president is going to have to be flexible.”

Senate Democrats discussed the emergency border package on Tuesday beforethe Appropriations Committee’s consideration of the spending measure, and there seemed to be agreement that the cleaner the bill, the better. Otherwise the legislation could fail on the Senate floor.

“I recognize that there’s a humanitarian crisis at the border that we should be working in a bipartisan way to address,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). “The concerns that I and many of my colleagues have expressed from my caucus are what policy changes the majority might try to make.”

House Democrats are still working to craft their own version of the supplemental spending bill. But Trump’s latest threats are only going to alienate progressive and Hispanic lawmakers who are already wary of giving the administration any more funds for federal immigration programs.

“The president is totally unpredictable,” said Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee. “Even if we can get agreement with the Senate, there’s no predicting what the president would do.”

Congress is also running out of time.

Lawmakers hope to send a border package to Trump’s desk in the next few weeks before the administration’s money runs out. And Republicans working on budget negotiations said they need a bipartisan deal by August to sort out raising the debt limit and overall spending levels. Already they are behind last year’s schedule, and that ended in a 35-day shutdown.

“Sooner or later it’s got to end,” Shelby said. “I hope it ends in a good way.”

Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

health care

With health care poised to play a crucial role in the 2020 election, infighting within the Trump administration threatens to derail some of the president’s most prominent pledges to voters.

White House officials have soured on HHS Secretary Alex Azar, a deepening quarrel that threatens to derail President Donald Trump’s health care agenda as he gears up for his 2020 reelection campaign.

The divide has led to stalled projects, disputes over Medicaid and fetal tissue research, duplicated work on Trump’s drug pricing priorities — and bitter personal attacks, say a dozen current and former White House and HHS officials as well as multiple other people familiar with the conversations.

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The stakes are further heightened because health care is expected to play a crucial role in the 2020 election, and Trump has repeatedly pledged to soon unveil a plan that is higher quality and less expensive than Obamacare — an ambitious promise that his team of rivals is not ready to deliver on.

“You have two teams with two visions,” said an individual who’s been in heated meetings with HHS and the White House. “Alex is outnumbered and keeps losing.”

HHS downplayed policy disputes between Azar and White House officials. “Sec. Azar has a productive and close working relationship with President Trump, Vice President Pence, and senior White House officials,” said HHS spokesperson Caitlin Oakley. “That’s why the Secretary has been able to execute on so many of the President’s objectives and deliver real results for the American people.”

The White House framed the disagreements as part of a deliberative policy process. “The Department of Health and Human Services, under Secretary Azar, is leading on a number of the president’s priorities, including combating the opioid epidemic, protecting the dignity of human life, lowering prices for care and prescription drugs even further, and ending HIV transmissions in the U.S. within 10 years,” said White House spokesperson Judd Deere. “The White House and the Department are working hand in hand on these important priorities and will continue to do so for the benefit of all Americans.”

Despite the recent tensions, Azar is not perceived to be at risk of losing his job — although the president is famously fickle and, by some accounts, Trump’s trust in his health secretary has eroded. A former Jeb Bush fundraiser, Azar entered the Trump administration without ties to the president but he did have ties to Mike Pence from his time as a top executive at Eli Lilly in Indiana.

Trump, who is officially launching his reelection campaign Tuesday in Florida, has grown frustrated that his appointees have not lowered drug prices as he had promised, something that numerous polls show is a priority for voters, particularly senior citizens. “It’s totally political,” a former White House official said. “You can’t ignore the political angle.”

Azar has spent months battling White House domestic policy chief Joe Grogan, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and other officials over proposals targeting high drug prices, Medicaid and Obamacare, individuals inside and outside the administration said. But Azar has been repeatedly overruled, including on Trump’s decision to reverse a Justice Department stance in a high-profile Texas lawsuit and urge courts to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act.

Azar “hasn’t exactly been in line here recently,” said one administration official.

A former drug company executive-turned-Cabinet secretary, Azar also resisted letting Florida import drugs from Canada, a plan sought by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally.

The simmering clash has pitted the ideological bent of officials like Grogan and Mulvaney — who see themselves as upholding Trump’s hard-line agenda — against Azar, a conservative but pragmatic former George W. Bush administration official.

Trump also overruled Azar on a recent decision to limit researchers’ access to fetal tissue obtained from abortion. Azar objected to the administration’s plan to ban government scientists at the NIH from doing such research. Pence strongly disagreed, as stopping fetal tissue projects is a top priority for him.

Oakley, the HHS spokesperson, said Azar supported the administration’s stance. HHS “led the rollout of the president’s decision regarding research involving human fetal tissue from elective abortions,” she said, calling the administration’s anti-abortion work a top priority. HHS also recently moved to freeze Planned Parenthood out of the largest federal grant program for family planning.

While current and former officials say that some tension is inherent in the administration’s high-pressure jobs — as officials hammer out changes that could reshape the $3 trillion U.S. health system — the relationship between this White House and its health department has devolved into regular sniping and, at times, personal attacks. Azar has openly disparaged Grogan in front of colleagues, a half-dozen individuals say, and gotten into shouting matches with other staff, ultimately barring one senior White House economist from his meetings.

“The friction just got worse and worse over time behind the president’s back,” said one person familiar with the matter, who described the dynamic as constant, day-to-day “combat” between Azar and Grogan, who also worked in the pharmaceutical industry.

High-level HHS staffers have also escalated conflicts, adding to tensions with the White House and forcing Azar to personally litigate disputes. “They’ve thrust [Azar] onto the front line rather than reserve him for the big fights,” said a person familiar with the White House dynamics.

Meanwhile, White House officials have used their access to bypass Azar and directly lobby Trump — and have won nearly all of this year’s high-profile health policy battles, according to five current and former administration officials. More fights still loom on granting states additional Medicaid flexibility, boosting transparency of health care prices and other drug pricing issues.

“It’s Joe, Russ [Vought, acting OMB director], Mick, the whole cabal … they’re all fighting him,” said one former official who’s been in tense meetings with Azar and his White House counterparts. “They’ve slowed his rules and made everything difficult.”

Azar retains support from Trump and his allies remain confident he can weather this current wave of attacks. The HHS secretary has cultivated a close relationship with Trump, who has hailed him repeatedly for his bid to slash drug prices.

Azar also has strong relationships in several other corners of the White House, three individuals say, including Jared Kushner — the president’s son-in-law and close adviser — and First Lady Melania Trump, who has traveled with Azar to the border and to tout the administration’s opioid response. The Trump administration also has come together on several health priorities, including a rule released last week intended to expand health coverage options for small businesses. Azar helped steer an initiative to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic, announced in the president’s State of the Union, that aims to end the spread of the virus in the U.S. by 2030.

But the deep divide between Trump’s top health policy officials is causing staff confusion and repeated delays, even as the administration tries to hammer out several drug price rules and reach a potential drug pricing deal with congressional Democrats — tricky political terrain going into an election year. Trump has also appeared frustrated when his allies’ priorities have been delayed by fights within his administration, witnesses said.

At an Oval Office meeting last month, Trump repeatedly pushed Azar about what HHS was doing to help DeSantis import prescription drugs to Florida from other countries. But Azar instead focused on other efforts that he said would lower drug prices — a tactic that frustrated Trump, said Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman who also attended the meeting.

Azar’s “lack of enthusiasm was palpable,” according to a person familiar with the meeting. “Sec. Azar was challenging the wisdom of approving this.”

Trump also demanded staff move forward on a $20 million children’s hospital initiative requested by golfing buddy Jack Nicklaus after HHS’ funding got held up by Grogan’s team of White House budget officials, say two individuals with knowledge of the request.

Most of the tension, however, has been between HHS and the White House’s policymaking apparatus. While Azar bristled over Grogan’s leadership of the health division inside the Office of Management and Budget — an internal clearinghouse that frequently slow-walks Cabinet members’ initiatives due to budgetary concerns — their battles have intensified since Grogan was elevated to run the White House Domestic Policy Council, which has more authority to shape Trump’s agenda.

A recent flashpoint: HHS’ effort to lower drug prices through a controversial rule that would effectively eliminate rebates given to drug makers. Grogan had fought the so-called rebate rule over its approximately $177 billion cost to the government over a decade — even as Trump and Azar have touted it as a strategic piece of the president’s longstanding vow to lower drug prices. The rule is now on track to be finalized, sources on and off Capitol Hill said, though it’s yet to clear budget officials’ review.

“If you are a fiscal crazy hawk — Joe is — there’s nothing worth paying money for,” said an individual briefed on the matter.

Azar and Grogan also are pursuing twin efforts to craft drug price reforms with Congress, with Azar focused on a bipartisan effort emerging in the Senate and Grogan working with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. Their efforts are largely parallel, according to lawmakers and aides, in what several people pointed to as a sign of the frosty relations between HHS and the White House policy shop.

Meanwhile, Azar has personally involved himself in disputes with Grogan and other White House officials that would traditionally be left to staffers. For instance, Azar has clashed with White House economist Tomas Philipson in multiple meetings, said three individuals who have attended, a long-running feud that was accelerated when Philipson criticized Azar’s drug-pricing plan last year. The two men also loudly battled after Philipson presented findings that suggested Medicare Part D — the prescription drug benefit enacted by the George W. Bush administration, of which Azar was a part — contributed to the nation’s opioid epidemic by lowering prices.

Azar subsequently had Philipson barred from meetings, two individuals said, although the policy was ultimately reversed. Philipson is expected to be tapped as the next head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he would be further empowered to evaluate the economic effects of Azar’s policies.

Azar is not expected to leave HHS before the 2020 election, according to four individuals. He announced an agency-wide leadership reorganization on Monday that strengthened his lieutenants. Trump’s second HHS secretary who received Senate confirmation in January 2018, Azar has prioritized good governance of the agency and is conscious of not appearing to bow to a particular side for political expediency.

“Mick and Joe are not going to kick Alex out of his job,” a source familiar with the dynamics said, pointing to Azar’s ties to Trump and his family. “If that side of the house is in good shape, I don’t see the acting chief of staff who gets yelled at for coughing as the individual who’s going to get rid of him.”

white house

Patrick Shanahan’s departure highlights the administration’s hollowed-out senior ranks.

A little more than a year ago, moments after he fired former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by tweet, President Donald Trump looked ahead optimistically to reshaping his Cabinet.

Standing on the White House driveway, the president told reporters, “I’m really at a point where we’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want.”

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It hasn’t quite worked out that way. Instead, Trump has a Cabinet-by-default, many of whose members were simply the last man — or woman — standing after others pulled out of the running, declined the president’s job offers or couldn’t get through their nomination hearings.

In just the latest instance of a Trump official going down amid the harsh glare of an invigorated Washington press corps, acting defense secretary Pat Shanahan withdrew from consideration for the top Pentagon job on Tuesday as news outlets published lurid accounts of his divorce.

Shanahan was never even formally nominated by the White House, but at least he managed to serve in his post for several months.

Others made it slightly farther before being ground up by Trump’s Washington. Labor secretary nominee Andy Puzder saw his support evaporate in the Senate when POLITICO published allegations of domestic abuse from his ex-wife, and threw in the towel before he even sat for a hearing. Ronny Jackson, the White House physician Trump picked to run the VA, withdrew after accusations of misconduct on the job.

If there’s a thread running through them all, it’s a president with a penchant for choosing many top appointees based on instinct — and without regard to prior government experience — plus a White House whose vetting operation is far from thorough and a thin Republican Senate majority with little room for error. The result is that the Trump administration’s senior ranks are comprised largely of individuals who were not, in many cases, the president’s first or even second choice to fill the post, but instead became the only logical choice after the competition evaporated.

They include the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who accepted his position after several others bowed out, including Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; the president’s pick to be the ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Knight Craft, who was tapped after the former State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, quietly pulled herself out of the running; and Attorney General Bill Barr, who turned down the White House before finally accepting the job after other candidates he himself had recommended said no.

Add to these woes an administration with abnormally high turnover, as well as the usual churn in Washington, and Trump is presiding over a government run in many cases by acting officials from the Cabinet level on down.

The president on Tuesday brushed aside those concerns, telling reporters before boarding Air Force One en route to Orlando, where he was set to kick off his 2020 re-election campaign, that he was pleased with the composition of his Cabinet.

“We have a very good vetting process. You take a look at our Cabinet and our secretary it’s very good,” Trump said. “But we have a great vetting process.” And he reiterated his oft-stated preference for appointing acting Cabinet chiefs and avoiding the Senate confirmation process.

“As you know Pat was acting,” he said. “Acting gives you much greater flexibility, a lot easier to do things.”

Others, however, said the composition of Trump’s Cabinet was the logical result of the president’s haphazard management style.

“There are a lot of qualified people out there but not a lot who would want to work in this administration given the brevity of tenure that most of these folks face,” said Jeremy Bash, who served as chief of staff to former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. “It’s always a gamble when you select people for very senior jobs who have zero experience in government.”

Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, had not previously served in government before being tapped to run the Pentagon, a sprawling and notoriously difficult agency to manage.

“Government service tends to weed out those who are unqualified and those who cannot pass vetting,” Bash added. “When you reach for people who have no government service you are taking a huge risk.”

Trump, who likewise had no government experience before assuming the most powerful job in the world, gravitates toward nontraditional hires, compounding the risks.

One Cabinet official, former Pentagon chief Jim Mattis, resigned in protest. Several — Tom Price, Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke — were effectively forced out amid scandal. A few, Kirstjen Nielsen, Jeff Sessions, David Shulkin and Rex Tillerson, fell afoul of a president accustomed to getting his own way. Just two, Nikki Haley and Linda McMahon, left the administration on their own terms.

Shanahan wasn’t the president’s first choice for the Pentagon job. Trump said he would nominate him after the retired Army Gen. Jack Keane and former Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl said they were not interested in the position, POLITICO reported in January.

Shanahan has served as acting secretary of defense since Mattis’ departure in early January. Though the president has said repeatedly that he prefers cabinet members who are serving in an acting capacity, Trump had faced mounting pressure from lawmakers on Capitol Hill to nominate a permanent defense chief.

Senate confirmation for the Pentagon post is considered particularly important because the secretary of Defense is a part of the chain of command and bears responsibility for deploying troops.

“Since the SecDef is supposed to assert civilian control over the military and all the generals who report to SecDef are confirmed by the Senate, he is at a disadvantage exercising authority over them when their positions have more political grounding than his,” said Paul Wolfowitz, who served as deputy secretary of defense in the George W. Bush administration.

The calls for a nominee did not abate on Tuesday, when Trump announced that Army Secretary Mark Esper would replace Shanahan as the acting secretary of Defense.

“I do think we’d be better off by far to have a secretary of defense who is actually confirmed by the Senate,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said it was “appalling” not to have the position filled in a permanent capacity and that “it shows the chaos in this administration.”

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican who served as President Barack Obama’s secretary of Defense, said it was in Esper’s interest to go through the formal Senate process.

“That really gives that position and that individual legitimacy going forward,“ he said. “When you are not confirmed you’re just kind of swinging out there in the wind.”

Army Secretary Mark Esper, who’s been tapped to be the new acting secretary of defense, is a former aerospace executive like the departing Pat Shanahan. But he’ll also come to the job with key supporters close to the president, and with deeper ties to the military.

Esper, who administration officials say was in the running for the top Pentagon post before President Donald Trump said he was choosing Shanahan in early May, has been an ally of the president’s on the controversial use of active-duty soldiers to beef up border security, including traveling with Trump to the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months.

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Unlike critics in both parties, Esper doesn’t worry that deploying thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border will erode their preparednesss for combat, he told POLITICO last December. “I don’t see any need to assume there will be a degradation in readiness. And in many ways, they can build readiness, depending on the type of work they’re doing.”

Esper is a close ally of Trump pal David Urban, the political operative who helped advise the president’s 2016 campaign in Pennsylvania. The two, along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1986.

Esper’s military pedigree marks a major difference from Shanahan, a former career executive at Boeing who withdrew from consideration to be the permanent Pentagon boss on Tuesday and had an unusually rocky tenure amid growing reports that Trump had doubts in him.

Esper, 55, served for a decade on active duty and in the 101st Airborne Division during the 1991 Persian Gulf War before joining the Army Reserve. He also was as a national security aide to then-senator and future Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

“I’ve known him for a long time,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Armed Services Committee, told POLITICO, calling Esper an “excellent choice” should Trump nominate him for the post.

“[He’ll] be confirmable and I think a good leader,” added Graham, a former Air Force legal officer. “There are a lot of good choices for the president, but I’d put him high on the list.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who would lead any confirmation hearings for secretary of defense, also told POLITICO, “I think a lot of Mark Esper. I’ve been with him in the field and I’ve watched his style of working with the troops. He does really a very good job.”

Both Inhofe and Graham are leading supporters of the president’ in the Senate.

Esper is also a close ally of Gen. Mark Milley, the rough and tumble Army chief of staff who has endeared himself to Trump and has been nominated to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to individuals who know both men.

“Milley and Esper form a powerful team and seem to largely see eye-to-eye on a variety of issues,” said retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, predicting the partnership will be valuable for Esper.

Esper has departed from Trump, however, on the issue of a transgender troop ban, which Shanahan spearheaded as deputy defense secretary. Last year, Esper testified to Congress that he saw no problems with transgender troops currently serving in the ranks.

“We know who they are, and it is monitored very closely because we’re concerned about that and want to make sure that they are in fact treated with dignity and respect and have precisely zero reports of issues of cohesion, discipline, morale and all sorts of things,” he said at the time.

Opponents of the ban, which is slated to be voted on this week by the Democratic-controlled House, said they will be watching how Esper handles the controversial issue.

“It will be very interesting to see how Esper talks about the ban as acting secretary given these past comments.,” said Perry Sacks, a spokesperson for several attorneys who are defending transgender service members.

Before rejoining the Pentagon in late 2017, Esper was the top lobbyist for Raytheon, one of the five largest U.S. defense contractors, and he will undoubtedly face questions about his defense industry and lobbying ties if Trump nominates him.

During his confirmation hearing to be Army secretary, Esper fended off questions about potential conflicts of interest, telling skeptical senators that he directly lobbied only on a handful of Army programs, and resisted calls to extend his two-year recusal from Raytheon matters to his entire tenure as Army secretary.

“I think it will [be an issue] with Democrats, because Democrats are going to oppose him anyway,” Inhofe said. “But it hasn’t been a problem so far.”

As secretary of the Army, the soft-spoken Esper has made few waves. His flagship project has been establishing a four-star command to field new technology and doctrine for the service as it shifts focus from counterinsurgency to competition with China and Russia.

In public appearances, he’s often said the Army is at a similar crossroads as after the the Vietnam War, when the service rebuilt itself to face down the Soviets in Europe and fielded major new weapons systems. “There’s a renaissance underway in the United States Army,” Esper told POLITICO in the December interview.

Another of his pet issues has been the growing trend of new recruits whose parents also wore the uniform. “I am concerned that we are becoming increasingly isolated from the larger public because [the Army] is becoming a family business in many ways,” Esper said at a think tank event last year. “If you talk to any senior Army leaders, you’ll find one, if not all their children are in the Army. And so, the family business has taken over.”

House Democrats intend to question former White House communications director Hope Hicks on Wednesday about five specific incidents that special counsel Robert Mueller detailed as part of his investigation into whether President Donald Trump tried to obstruct an investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, aides said.

The Judiciary Committee, which will hear from Hicks in a closed-door interview, also intends to ask the longtime Trump confidante about hush-money payments that prosecutors say Trump directed to women who planned to accuse him of extramarital affairs in the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign, including adult film star Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels.

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The transcript of Hicks’ sit-down with the committee is expected to be made public within 48 hours, an aide said.

The general focus of the interview, laid out by Democratic committee aides on Tuesday, could be interrupted by White House efforts to block Hicks from testifying about her tenure in the Trump administration, which they claim is subject to a broad interpretation of executive privilege.

Hicks was a firsthand witness to the fallout inside the West Wing after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, and after Mueller was appointed.

She told Mueller’s investigators that Trump despised the Russia investigation because it called into question the legitimacy of his victory. Hicks also provided crucial details about Trump’s efforts to thwart or constrain Mueller’s probe, including by pressuring then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse his recusal from overseeing the probe and then-White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller.

The committee’s decision to focus on the hush-money payments is notable because another investigative panel, the House Oversight and Reform Committee, has already been looking into the issue. In February, that committee heard from former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, who arranged the payments to women who accused Trump of extramarital affairs.

Cohen is currently serving a three-year prison sentence for lying to Congress and various financial crimes.

A White House lawyer will be present for Hicks’ interview with the committee — an indication that the White House will try to block Hicks from answering questions related to her tenure as communications director.

But committee aides say they’ll require Trump to formally invoke executive privilege, rather than allow White House lawyers to simply hypothesize about it. If the White House doesn’t put those claims in writing, an aide said, “we’re not going to accept that as being satisfactory.”

Even then, the committee may attempt to force Hicks to answer questions about which they say executive privilege has already been waived — a nod to the fact that Trump allowed Hicks to testify without limits to Mueller’s team.

Though the Hicks transcript may take days to be released, Judiciary Committee members are likely to discuss some of her testimony publicly on Thursday, when the panel holds a follow-up hearing with legal experts to discuss the alleged obstruction episodes, as well as Trump’s recent comment that he’d accept dirt on his opponent from a foreign adversary in his 2020 race.

The White House previously blocked Hicks and other key Mueller witnesses from providing documents to the committee. It also has sought to block McGahn from testifying publicly. The committee is expected to go to court soon to secure McGahn’s testimony.

Hicks agreed to turn over documents pertaining to her service on Trump’s presidential campaign. But she acquiesced to the White House’s demand that she withhold documents related to her tenure as White House communications director.

She previously testified to the House Intelligence Committee as part of its 2018 Russia investigation, led by Republicans at the time, telling lawmakers that she sometimes told “white lies” on Trump’s behalf. Back then, Rep. Adam Schiff — the committee’s ranking member at the time — called on Republicans to subpoena Hicks, and possibly initiate contempt proceedings, over her refusal to discuss her White House tenure.