US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US Department of State intends to follow the law in the US House of Representatives’ impeachment investigation and vigorously defended US President Donald Trump, dismissing questions about the president’s attempts to push Ukraine and China to investigate a Democratic political rival.
Pompeo, speaking on Saturday in Greece, said the State Department sent a letter to Congress on Friday night as its initial response to the document request and added: “We’ll obviously do all the things that we’re required to do by law.”
He has allowed Democrats to interview a series of witnesses this week. Among them is US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, another key figure in the probe.
Photo: AFP
The Trump administration has struggled to come up with a unified response to the quickly progressing investigation.
Democrats have warned that defying their demands will in itself be considered “evidence of obstruction” and a potentially impeachable offense.
Pompeo has become a key figure in the Democrats’ investigation.
He was on the line during the July telephone call in which Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former US vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, sparking a whistle-blower complaint and now the impeachment inquiry.
Pompeo had initially tried to delay a handful of current and former officials from cooperating with the inquiry and accused Democrats of trying to “bully” his staffers.
On Saturday, Pompeo did not back off his defense of Trump’s call with Ukraine.
“There has been some suggestion somehow that it would be inappropriate for the United States government to engage in that activity and I see it just precisely the opposite,” he said.
Trump has offered a series of contradictory statements when it comes to the Democrats’ subpoena of White House records, but by Friday, he confirmed reports that the White House was preparing a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, arguing that Congress cannot undertake an impeachment investigation without first having a vote to authorize it.
Pelosi has insisted that the House is well within its rules to conduct oversight of the executive branch under the Constitution regardless.
It was unclear Saturday when or if that letter would be sent.
Pompeo made clear that the State Department had yet to turn over any documents, but intended to follow a proper review.
A congressional aide familiar with Pompeo’s response confirmed that the State Department had indeed been in contact, even if Pompeo had failed to meet a Friday deadline to produce documents required by the subpoena.
Trump on Saturday denounced the investigation as yet another “Witch Hunt!” and “a fraud against the American people!”
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