House issues first subpoena
Democrats demand Ukraine documents from Secretary of State
House Democrats, kick-starting their impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday, demanding he produce a tranche of documents related to the president’s dealings with Ukraine. Separately, they instructed him to make five State Department officials available for depositions in the coming two weeks.
A failure to do so, the leaders of three House committees wrote jointly, would be construed as “evidence of obstruction of the House’s inquiry.”
It was the first official action in the rapidly escalating impeachment investigation.
With Congress now in recess and politicians headed home to their districts, Democrats were working on two tracks, meticulously outlining a rapid-fire set of investigative steps while they honed their messaging for what promises to be a divisive and politically charged process.
House Democratic leaders instructed their rank-and-file Friday to keep it simple when talking to voters, emphasizing that Trump had “engaged in serious wrongdoing” and had “abused the office of the president.” Investigators for Rep. Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, were assembling a plan of inquiry and sequence of witnesses the committee should call or subpoena for testimony.
Rep. David Cicilline, head of the party’s messaging arm, circulated talking points for his colleagues, aimed especially at helping moderates — many of whom were against an impeachment inquiry only a week ago but have now voiced their support — explain this past week’s dizzying turn of events to their constituents.
Headlined “No One Is Above The Law,” the talking points laid out three central messages for Democrats: that the president “engaged in serious wrongdoing, betrayed his oath of office and undermined national security,” that he “pressured a foreign government to target a political opponent to help in his reelection and tried to cover it up” and that they would follow the facts.
The inquiry centres Trump’s efforts to pressure the president of Ukraine to launch a corruption investigation into former vice-president Joe Biden, part of a whistle blower’s complaint that charged the president with using his office to enlist foreign help to boost his own reelection in 2020. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she wants it done quickly, and Schiff’s committee is expected to move ahead with the investigation in the coming days.
Trump, increasingly enraged by the airing of the allegations against him and Democrats’ move to consider impeaching him as a result, tried to defend himself in an irate series of tweets Friday. He called his conversation with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine “perfect” and “appropriate” and lashed out at Schiff, demanding his resignation.
Pelosi said that William Barr, the attorney general, had “gone rogue,” given the role of the Justice Department in withholding the whistleblower complaint from Congress. In his conversation with Zelenskiy that was a crucial element of the complaint, Trump instructed the Ukrainian president to follow up with Barr and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, on launching the investigation of Biden.
“Since he was mentioned in all of this, it’s curious that he would be making decisions about how the complaint would be handled,” Pelosi said of Barr on CNN.
The committee has already stated publicly that it intends to meet with the whistleblower in a secure setting as soon as possible, to try to identify other officials who witnessed the alleged events and who would be willing to co-operate with their work.
They also will speak again with the intelligence community inspector general, Michael Atkinson, who was restricted last week from sharing any details with Congress about the work his office did to initially corroborate the complaint.