Trump’s goons plan to ignore the subpoenas, because he told them to. Telling them to equals telling them to invite prosecution and conviction and a sentence, but whatevs, that’s their problem.

All four Trump aides targeted by the select committee – [Mark] Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, strategist Steve Bannon and defense department aide Kash Patel – are expected to resist the orders because Trump is preparing to direct them to do so, the source said.

It’s not clear how Trump can “direct” them to do anything. He’s not their boss and he’s not god of the universe. They don’t have to do what he tells them to do.

But increasingly concerned with the far-reaching nature of the 6 January investigation, Trump and his legal team, led by the ex-Trump campaign lawyer Justin Clark the former deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin, are moving to instruct the attorneys for the subpoenaed aides to defy the orders.

So the ex-boss’s attorneys are “moving to instruct” the underlings’ attorneys to protect the boss at their own expense. But the underlings’ attorneys are the underlings’ attorneys, not the boss’s. I don’t see how the boss’s lawyers get to “instruct” the underlings’ lawyers to throw their own case. I hope they send a message back instructing Trump to go fuck himself.

Trump’s strategy mirrors the playbook he used to prevent House Democrats from deposing his top advisers during his presidency. The former White House counsel Don McGahn, for instance, only testified to Congress about the Mueller inquiry once Trump left office.

Yes but the key difference there is during his presidency. This isn’t that.

House select committee investigators had demanded that the four Trump aides turn over emails, call records and other documents related to the Capitol attack by Thursday and then appear before the panel for closed-door depositions next week.

But with the former president expected to insist to Philbin that Meadows, Scavino, Bannon and Patel mount blanket refusals against the subpoenas, the source said, the select committee at present appears likely to see none of the requests fulfilled.

Again – what force does Trump’s “insisting” have? Who cares what he insists? He’s just some guy who cheats at golf.