“C’mon man” even then President Obama has frustrated the Congress using these tactics many times.
The House is well aware they cannot order the President to do its will as a higher authority…They are equal. Just as the President cannot force Congress to do his will.The President has what is called “executive privilege". That is his right to have confidential conversations with his cabinet. Keep documents inside the executive branch, etc. So it is pretty standard fare how the Congress subpoenas of one of the Presidents (former) advisers or documents will go to court with any POTUS claiming executive privilege while in office.
The third coequal branch, the Judiciary, is the neutral umpire.The President takes the matter to the courts and they decide if it was a legitimate case of executive privilege or not. If not, the court can order the Presidents advisers or cabinet minister etc to honor the subpoena or give up the documents requested. That’s how a subpoena gets enforced. Not by the President bowing to Congress.
The House in charging Bannon with obstruction will take some time. Plus SB will likely have hindsight in his favor by likely being able to wait and see how the courts ultimately rule on President Trump’s filings and appeals beforehand.
Meanwhile this Pelosi hand picked select committee in trying to do a work around are hard pressed to try to do something to change the tide. With mid term elections less than one year away, time is ticking before “The Jig is Up”.
And the current president has that power, not former presidents. Think about it logically, if a former President and a current president disagree on what should be privileged, who wins? Clearly the current president.
I’d say former presidents have no power to retroactively make things “privileged”.