The Trump White House instructed former White House counsel Don McGahn to defy a Congressional subpoena, and McGahn did just that on Tuesday, refusing to provide a trove of documents cited in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

The House Judiciary Committee will vote Wednesday on whether to recommend that McGahn be cited for contempt of Congress.

In a letter, McGahn’s successor, Pat Cipollone, said documents sought by the committee had been provided to Mueller’s investigation “with the clear understanding” that they would remain under control of the White House “for all purposes.”

NEW: White House counsel Pat Cipollone has instructed former counsel Don McGahn to withhold subpoenaed documents from the House Judiciary Committeehttps://t.co/qrpkpCky11

— Axios (@axios) May 7, 2019

Cipollone asserts that President Trump can use executive privilege to prevent Congress from seeing the documents.

But Democrats argue that Trump has “lost the authority to withhold the material in question,” says the New York Times, “since he allowed Mr. McGahn to share it with his own private lawyer and discuss it at length with the Mr. Mueller.”

“Interviews with McGahn, who cooperated for more than 30 hours with the special counsel’s office, are cited in the Mueller report 157 times — more than any other witness,” says

In his report, Mueller noted two episodes in which McGahn was a critical witness that appear to provide evidence of  obstruction of justice by the president.

Cipollone letter to Nadler takes the approach that the documents McGahn has belong to the White House, and urges Nadler to begin the process by working with WH instead of through subpoeans https://t.co/JReugjgziq

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 7, 2019

Along with the documents, the subpoena to McGahn demanded that he testify publicly on May 21.  It’s unclear if the White House will try to prevent that from happening.

“McGahn emerged as a central player in Mueller’s findings, a senior confidante who documented in real-time Trump’s rage against the Russia investigation and efforts to shut it down. Democrats were hoping to have him testify for a national television audience,” says the Washington Post.

“McGahn delivered some of the most damning testimony in Mueller’s investigation of whether Trump attempted to obstruct the probe of his 2016 campaign’s links to the Russian government,” says Politico.

It adds that McGahn’s testimony, and notes taken by his deputy, “portrayed a White House in chaos, a president fuming at the special counsel investigation and repeatedly attempting to disrupt the probe.”