...is that Congress never went to the courts in order to enforce their subpoenas. So the president's refusal to hand over documents was never tested in court.

Had Congress gone to court to enforce their subpoenas, there is a very good chance that they would ultimately have been successful. But the process would have taken a long time (possibly well past the election), which is why Congress chose not to go that route.

Good analysis.

I'm glad the FOIA has not yet been destroyed.

than for those using 'freedom of information'?

...to confuse what we might have access to and what Congress has access to.

I doubt that any of the FOIA'd documents are ones which were withheld from Congress.

I suspect that the documents received under FOIA were likely withheld from Congress because the subpoenas were broad enough to include both the FOIA-released dox and a lot of other records. To partially comply would be to recognize the legitimacy of the subpoena and weak the case for non-compliance.

There's also going to be a bit of knee-jerkism. The FOIA requests started a while back and typically involve lower-level folk. The House demands were rejected at the highest levels. Consider it a way of producing a legal leak.

If so we need to get them!!