Pompeo, House chairmen clash
Secretary of state rejects Dems’ demands to interview State Department officials
WASHINGTON » The Trump administration and the leaders of the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump clashed Tuesday over Democrats’ demands to depose State Department officials who are witnesses in their growing investigation, trading accusations of underhanded tactics.
Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo pushed back in a letter Tuesday morning on a demand from three House committees for American diplomats to sit this week for depositions on Capitol Hill, saying the effort amounted to “an act of intimidation” and did not allow enough time for the State Department to properly respond.
The chairmen of the House Intelligence,
Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Reform Committees who have scheduled the confidential interviews scoffed at the suggestion, accusing Pompeo of being the one who was “intimidating department witnesses in order to protect himself and the president.” Blocking them from showing up as scheduled, they added, would constitute obstruction of Congress’ work — an action Democrats view as an impeachable offense itself.
“Any effort to intimidate witnesses or prevent them from talking with Congress — including State Department employees — is illegal and will constitute evidence of obstruction of the impeachment inquiry,” wrote Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee; Rep. Eliot Engel, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee;
and Rep. Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the Oversight and Reform Committee. “In response, Congress may infer from this obstruction that any withheld documents and testimony would reveal information that corroborates the whistleblower complaint.”
In his letter, Pompeo did not refuse outright to allow the State Department employees to answer House investigators’ questions about the actions of Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Those issues are at the heart of the whistleblower’s complaint, which details attempts by the president to pressure Ukraine’s leaders to help smear one of his top Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, using Giuliani to spearhead the effort.
But the testy exchange cast doubt on whether Democrats would be able to begin the depositions as planned today, and raised the possibility that they might instead have to first
issue a subpoena demanding compliance or turn to other pressure points.
Others in the president’s camp appeared to be preparing to confront the fastmoving inquiry, too.
Giuliani, who is named in a whistleblower complaint as a point man in the president’s efforts to pressure Ukraine’s government, retained his own lawyer for the escalating inquiry.
And Trump himself, in an angry round of Twitter posts, suggested that Schiff, D-Calif., should be arrested.
The House chairmen who jointly scheduled the depositions were said to be preparing additional requests and subpoenas for information related to the case.
They have already issued a subpoena to Pompeo for documents related to the matter.
At the White House, an indignant Trump kept his focus on the anonymous whistleblower whose complaint prompted the House
inquiry. In a series of tweets, the president asked why he was not “entitled to interview” the person. The online venting came a day after Trump said the White House was trying to find out the person’s identity, despite institutional directives and confidentiality protections.
In addition to interviewing the “so-called ‘Whistleblower,’ ” Trump said Tuesday, he would also like to interview “the person who gave all of the false information to him.”
The president’s remarks appeared to prompt a forceful, if not explicit, warning Tuesday from a senior member of his own party. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the senior-most Senate Republican and a longtime champion of whistleblower laws, said the government and the media “should always work to respect whistleblowers’ requests for confidentiality.” He did not explicitly mention Trump.
“No one should be making judgments or pronouncements without hearing from the whistleblower first and carefully following up on the facts,” Grassley said in a written statement from Iowa, where he underwent surgery this week. “Uninformed speculation wielded by politicians or media commentators as a partisan weapon is counterproductive and doesn’t serve the country.”
In a letter and a pair of tweets sent from Rome shortly after meeting with President Sergio Mattarella of Italy, Pompeo described the Sept. 27 demand for the senior State Department officials’ testimony as “an attempt to intimidate, bully and treat improperly” American diplomats.
House Democrats late last week subpoenaed Pompeo for documents and also asked for access to witnesses who were expected to speak to investigators this week. But given the recent disclosure that he also listened in on the call, Pompeo himself could be subpoenaed to testify.
The State Department witnesses who have been called for depositions include Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was recalled to Washington in May. Yovanovitch was instructed by the House to appear today.
It appeared more likely that Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, would appear on Thursday for his scheduled deposition. Volker resigned his State Department post on Friday, the same day the demand for his testimony was issued.
Other State Department employees who have been called are George P. Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs; T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, a State Department counselor; and Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union.