Article snippet: A federal judge on Thursday fast-tracked a case involving a key impeachment witness caught between House Democrats seeking to compel his testimony and a White House order to defy a congressional subpoena. Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee to the Federal District Court in D.C., called the legal dispute over the testimony of Charles Kupperman, a former deputy to former National Security Advisor MORE, a “matter of great public interest and a matter of great urgency for the country.” Kupperman was on the July 25 phone call between MORE and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that is at the center of the impeachment inquiry. The judge set a Dec. 10 date for oral arguments. An attorney for Kupperman described the former aide as being caught in a “classic Catch-22,” facing irreconcilable demands from government branches caught in a potentially landmark legal battle over the separation of powers. Kupperman has “no dog in the fight,” his lawyer added, as he petitions the court for a speedy resolution to an inter-branch dispute. Trump has argued that his subordinates have “absolute immunity” from complying with congressional subpoena stemming from House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, an argument that Democrats say is legally groundless. The Kupperman hearing unfolded at the same time that a nearly identical dispute between lawyers representing the House Democrats and the White House played out in the same federal courthouse over the testimony of former ... Link to the full article to read more