Trump accused of massive obstruction by house panel chairman

The Democratic chairman of the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Wednesday accused President Donald Trump of a "massive, unprecedented, and growing pattern of obstruction" after he ordered federal employees not to comply with congressional investigations.

The Republican president ordered officials not to obey legal requests from the Democratic-led House of Representatives, which is carrying out multiple investigations of his administration, including his tax returns, White House security clearances and the probe of Russian interference in U.S. politics.

"President Trump and Attorney General (William) Barr are now openly ordering federal employees to ignore congressional subpoenas and simply not show up - without any assertion of a valid legal privilege," Representative Elijah Cummings, who chairs the House Oversight Committee said in a statement.

"This is a massive, unprecedented, and growing pattern of obstruction," Cummings added, warning federal employees to "think very carefully about their own legal interests" in refusing to comply with the panel's requests.

The president vowed to resist every subpoena from House Democrats investigating his administration and to fight any effort by them to impeach him.

Trump says House Democrats' demand that former White House lawyer Don McGahn testify 'is ridiculous' and unnecessary after two years of investigations into his administration.

'We’re fighting all the subpoenas,' he told reporters as he left the White House for an opioid summit in Atlanta.

He said litigation-happy Democrats should 'go after the DNC, crooked Hillary, the dirty cops' and Robert Mueller's investigators.

'That was a rigged system and I’m breaking down – I am breaking down the swamp. If you look at what’s happening, they’re getting caught, they’re getting fired,' he said. 'If you look at drain the swamp, I am draining the swamp.'

Trump was stuck on the phrase he debuted in the 2016 election on Wednesday.

'I know all about the rigging the system,' he claimed in a speech, 'because I had the system rigged on me!'

Trump has increasingly accused Democrats of conducting the Russia investigation for purely political purposes ahead of the 2020 election. He has stepped up those accusations since the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Democrats remain divided on whether to proceed with the impeachment of Trump after the Russia inquiry. Trump defiantly proclaimed on Twitter that the investigation “didn’t lay a glove on me.”

“If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court,” the Republican president, who is seeking re-election next year, said on Twitter without offering details about what legal action he envisioned.