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Congressional Democrats on Wednesday told the White House to prepare documents for subpoenas related to President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
In the past week, three committees in the House of Representatives have subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, staffers in the State Department and Trump’s attorney, Rudolph Giuliani. The committees are seeking documents and voluntary testimony from the current and former officials as the House digs into State Department actions and Trump’s other calls with foreign leaders that have been shielded from scrutiny, the Associated Press reported. The chairmen also are seeking testimony from officials including the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch, and former special envoy Kurt Volker, who recently resigned and is reportedly “eager” to appear as scheduled Thursday.
Pompeo said in a letter to the Democratic investigators that the requested dates for the officials to voluntarily appear for depositions, starting later this week, were “not feasible.”
Democrats struck back.
“Your failure or refusal to comply with the subpoena shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry,” wrote three House chairmen, Adam Schiff of the Intelligence committee, Eliot Engel of Foreign Affairs and Elijah Cummings of Oversight.
The committees are investigating allegations that Trump urged Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the family of Joe Biden, the former vice president, in a phone call. Schiff announced earlier this week that his committee was negotiating to interview the whistleblower, who reported the allegations to the inspector general for the intelligence community. The call unfolded as a $250 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine that was readied by Congress was stalled by the White House.
The whistleblower also wrote in an Aug. 12 letter to Congress that the White House moved to “lock down” Trump’s July 25 phone call with the new Ukrainian president because it was worried about the contents being leaked to the public.
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