Pence, Giuliani will not cooperate in U.S. House impeachment inquiry
WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said yesterday they will not cooperate with a U.S. House of Representatives impeachment inquiry, prompting a leading Democrat to say that would strengthen the case against the president.
The Pentagon also said it would not comply with lawmakers’ request for documents related to Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival, further illustrating Trump’s determination to stonewall the Democratic-led impeachment effort, which threatens to consume his presidency.
“The evidence of obstruction of Congress continues to build,” Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, one of the leaders of the impeachment effort, said at a news conference.
Other U.S. government officials have not been as reluctant to cooperate.
A senior U.S. diplomat, George Kent, said in closed-door testimony that he had been alarmed by efforts by Giuliani and others to pressure Ukraine, according to one lawmaker who heard his testimony.
“He was pretty detailed in talking about some of the shady characters Giuliani was dependent on for misinformation,” Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly told reporters.
House Democrats are focusing on Trump’s request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a July 25 phone call to look into unsubstantiated allegations about Joe Biden, the former vice president and a leading contender to become the Democratic nominee to run against Trump in the November 2020 U.S. presidential election.
If the Democratic-controlled House votes to approve articles of impeachment - formal charges - the Republicancontrolled Senate would then hold a trial on whether to remove the president from office. Success is seen as unlikely at this point as few Republican senators have criticized Trump.
A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday found that 43% of U.S. adults believe Trump should be impeached, and 42% said he should not be impeached. Another 14% said they were not sure.
Kent, who has spent much of his career fighting corruption in Ukraine and elsewhere, is the second career diplomat to testify as part of the probe after being subpoenaed. The White House and State Department had ordered them not to appear.
His testimony backed up accounts from other U.S. government insiders who have said they were unnerved by Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine.
Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, on Friday accused the Trump administration in testimony of recalling her in May based on false claims.
Kent also said that a top White House official, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, picked the officials who would handle Ukraine policy after the sitting ambassador was abruptly recalled in May.
“Here is a senior State Department official responsible for six countries, one of which is Ukraine, who found himself outside of a parallel process that he felt was undermining 28 years of U.S. policy in promoting
the rule of law in Ukraine. And that was wrong. He used that word, ‘wrong’,” Connolly said of Kent.
Two of those officials, U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, a special representative for Ukraine, worked with Giuliani to pressure Ukrainian officials to launch investigations that could benefit Trump, according to communications provided to the committee.
Volker resigned his post in late September. Sondland is due to testify later in the week in response to a congressional subpoena.