Welcome back to Trump Watch. The legal standoff between President Donald Trump and Congress escalated this week, threatening to draw the two branches into an open court fight. But first, we're turning your attention to a sentencing hearing this morning in a case that has Russia-watchers on their toes. Thanks as always for reading, and remember you can always email me or follow me on Twitter.

Maria Butina Heads Back to Court

A federal judge in Washington this morning is set to sentence Maria Butina, the Russian gun rights activist who cozied up to conservatives in the run-up to the 2016 election. Butina pleaded guilty in December to a single charge of conspiring to act as a foreign agent of Russia without notifying the U.S. government. Prosecutors, as part of a plea agreement, agreed to drop a second count of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, and Butina was required to cooperate with the government.

The sentencing, scheduled before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, caps a monthslong legal saga for Butina, who has admitted that she worked at a Russian official's behest to infiltrate conservative political circles while attending graduate school in Washington, D.C.. The hearing also comes after a row in court filings between her defense team and the government.

In filings, federal prosecutors have stressed the seriousness of Butina's work, painting it as part of a broader effort by Russia to foster a backchannel of communication with Americans. As Butina sought to link up with conservatives and the National Rifle Association, prosecutors said, she was “keenly aware” her work was being reported back to the Russian government.

“Butina was not a spy in the traditional sense of trying to gain access to classified information to send back to her home country,” said Erik Kenerson, an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington. “She was not a trained intelligence officer. But the actions she took were nonetheless taken on behalf of the Russian Official for the benefit of the Russian Federation, and those actions had the potential to damage the national security of the United States.”

Prosecutors, who are seeking an 18-month sentence for Butina, included a declaration from Robert Anderson, a former FBI counterintelligence official.Anderson wrote that the information Butina fed the Russian official was “of substantial intelligence value.” He said that “Russian intelligence services will be able to use this information for years to come in their efforts to spot and assess Americans who may be susceptible to recruitment as foreign intelligence assets.”

Butina's defense attorneys—McGlinchey Stafford partner Robert Driscoll and associate Alfred Carry—have accused prosecutors of raising a “wholly new theory of espionage activity.” In a Tuesday filing, they asked Chutkan to strike the declaration, arguing that “permitting the government to proceed on this basis would effectively transform Maria's sentencing hearing into a separate trial on unreliable claims with lower burdens of proof.”

“Maria accepted responsibility and has done everything she could to right her wrong. And while Maria knowingly entered her felony plea with full appreciation that her ultimate fate would rest in this court's hands, the government did induce it with aspirational promises of a cooperative sentencing hearing that have not borne out,” they added.

In their own sentencing memo, defense attorneys asked Chutkan to sentence Butina to time served, and order her prompt deportation back to Russia. Butina has already served nine months in jail.

Chutkan, in a minute order on Thursday, denied Butina's bid to strike the declaration, noting that her lawyers have “had notice of the government's intent to call Mr. Anderson as a witness or submit a Declaration from him since April 10, 2019.” The order noted that because defense lawyers did not ask to postpone Butina's sentencing, the hearing was still set for Friday.

Butina was first arrested in July 2018, and promptly ordered detained. She reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in December.

Trump v. Congress

If there's any doubt that the Trump White House plans to fight House Democrats' oversight demands tooth and nail, let this past week's developments settle that uncertainty.

The president's standoff with congressional Democrats dramatically escalated this week, as the administration rebuffed lawmakers' subpoenas or requests for documents on multiple fronts. Depending on how House Democrats move to enforce their demands, the two branches could find themselves in a protracted court battle.

In the span of just a few days, the Trump Justice Department defied a House Oversight subpoena for a deposition of top Civil Rights Division official John Gore; the White House directed a former personnel security director to resist another subpoena; the Treasury Department skipped past a second deadline for Trump's tax returns; and the White House is reportedly planning on asserting privilege to block former White House counsel Don McGahn from testifying.

In Trump's words on Wednesday, “We're fighting all the subpoenas.”

Of course, this all came after the president's personal attorneys went on the offensive Monday and, in a remarkable move, sued to block a House subpoena seeking his financial records. The complaint, filed in Washington by former deputy White House counsel Stefan Passantino and William Consovoy McCarthy partner William Consovoy, names as defendants: House Oversight chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, the committee's chief investigative counsel Peter Kenny, and the president's longtime accounting firm Mazars USA LLP.

It's worth noting that a former House lawyer told me this week that he couldn't recall any instance where a sitting president has sued the House, either in his official or personal capacity. He also stressed that the constitution's Speech and Debate clause broadly protects Congress' legislative and oversight powers, including the issuance of such subpoenas.

Reading Room

>> Conservative Big Law Veterans Raise Specter of Trump Impeachment. “A new statement from Checks & Balances, a group of high-profile conservative lawyers, is urging Congress to 'conduct further investigation' into behavior detailed in the Mueller report that is 'starkly inconsistent with the president's constitutional duty to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'” [The NLJ]

>> How the Trump White House shot itself in the foot on Don McGahn. Former White House counsel Donald McGahn is the star player in the recently released Mueller report, and now he's the star player in what promises to be the first of plenty of high-profile battles between the White House and House Democrats over executive privilege. Experts say the White House may have already shot itself in the foot on this one. [Washington Post]

>> Contradicting Constitution, Trump vows Supreme Court fight over impeachment. “President Donald Trump vowed on Wednesday to fight all the way to the Supreme Court against any effort by congressional Democrats to impeach him, even though the U.S. Constitution gives Congress complete authority over the impeachment process.” [Reuters]

Thanks for reading Trump Watch. I will be back with more news next week.