Cant be forced to testify before congress. Lets bring in attorney david rifkin, he served during the reagan and georg george h. W. Buh administrations. Welcome. Thank you for coming today. David, how strong is this president s case for saying that his aides dont have to testify because of this immunity . Very strong. It is a wellestablished immunity, paul, dates back to 1971, an opinion written by william republica renquist, been reaffirmed in nine administrations and both parties, fully case law. Ittheres a group of people tht see the president every day, he communicates with them, the 1971 opinion says the president is a coequal branch, he cannot command that members of congress appear before him. They cannot command he appears before them. I want to emphasize one more point. The reason the president has a strong position, theres another form of absolute immunity based upon 1989 opinion, he went on to be a chief judge in the fourth circuit. That stands for the proposition that Nation