White House: No inquiry defense to come
WASHINGTON — The White House signaled Friday that it did not intend to mount a defense of President Donald Trump or otherwise participate in the House impeachment proceedings, sending a sharply worded letter to Democrats condemning the process as “completely baseless” and urging them to get it over with quickly.
“House Democrats have wasted enough of America’s time with this charade,” the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, wrote in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, DN.Y. “You should end this inquiry now and not waste even more time with additional hearings.”
The letter did not explicitly say what Trump’s legal team planned to do, but it ended by quoting the president, saying that the House should hold a swift vote on impeachment to speed the way for a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate, where White House officials believe Trump will have a better chance to mount a defense.
That timetable also suits House Democrats, who have signaled they want to move quickly to impeach Trump before leaving Washington for Christmas.
The White House position most likely clears the way for House committees to debate and approve impeachment articles as soon as next week, allowing a vote by the full House by Dec. 20, the final legislative day of the year. And it all but ensures that the president’s defense will not be heard before early January, when the Senate is expected to begin a trial to hear whatever case the House presents.
The president and his allies have complained for months that they deserve legal representation in the inquiry. Now they are refusing an invitation to avail themselves.
House Republicans took a different approach in a letter of their own Friday. Rep. Doug Collins, RGa.,
the top Republican on the panel, asked Nadler to allow testimony by at least eight witnesses who have become outsize figures in the president’s defense.
The missives came the day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she was directing senior Democrats to begin drafting impeachment articles against Trump.
The Judiciary Committee held its first impeachment hearing this week, convening a panel of constitutional scholars to discuss the history and meaning of impeachment. The panel will hold another session Monday to receive and debate the findings from the House Intelligence Committee’s twomonth investigation of Trump’s attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.