Trump
impeachment inquiry
'We're not
fooling around': Pelosi and Schiff stand firm as Trump fumes
Democratic
pair say impeachment inquiry will not be slowed
Trump
condemned for ‘blatant effort to intimidate witnesses’
Lauren
Gambino, Julian Borger and David Smith in Washington
Wed 2 Oct
2019 22.19 BSTFirst published on Wed 2 Oct 2019 13.54 BST
Donald
Trump has been accused of “incitement to violence” and threatened with
obstruction charges in the fast-escalating battle over impeachment, as the
president maintained his aggressive counter-attack against Democratic leaders
and the whistleblower who precipitated the inquiry.
“We’re not fooling around here,” Adam Schiff,
the chair of the powerful House intelligence committee, said in Washington on
Wednesday.
Elijah
Cummings, the chair of the House oversight committee, revealed that it would
issue a subpoena to the White House if it failed to hand over documents on
contacts with Ukraine by Friday.
“I do not
take this step lightly,” Cummings said, saying the White House had stonewalled
on demands for cooperation for several weeks.
The
Democrats’ investigative steps have infuriated Trump, who was live-tweeting
their press conference on Capitol Hill. He denounced the impeachment process,
in block capitals, as “BULLSHIT” and later repeated an extreme claim that
Schiff should be investigated for treason.
The speaker
of the House, Nancy Pelosi, announced the start of the impeachment inquiry
eight days ago, focusing on a whistleblower complaint that emerged the week
before about a July phone call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian
president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The
complaint and a memo of the call issued by the White House have since been
released, indicating that Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden, a
leading rival for the White House in the 2020 election, while the US was
withholding vital aid from Ukraine.
Schiff
insisted on Wednesday that the inquiry would not be slowed down by presidential
“stonewalling” or threatening language against potential witnesses.
“We’re very
busy,” Schiff said. “We are proceeding deliberately but at the same time we
feel a real sense of urgency here.”
Democratic-run
House committees heard from the state department’s inspector general, an
independent watchdog, on Wednesday, followed by the former special envoy on
Ukraine on Thursday and the former ambassador to Kyiv next week. But they are
battling with the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, about other depositions by
state department officials and the handover of relevant documents.
Schiff and
Pelosi condemned Trump for rhetoric directed at an intelligence agency
whistleblower who revealed details of the phone call at the core of the
impeachment proceedings.
Trump has
referred to the whistleblower and the officials who provided information
included in the complaint as “spies” and implied they should face the death
penalty. Senior officials and some leading Republicans have confirmed the
whistleblower used recommended legal channels but Trump repeated the “spy”
allegation on Wednesday.
Donald
Trump at the White House with the Finnish PM on Wednesday. Pelosi and Schiff’s
press conference infuriated the president. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
Schiff said
the president was engaging in “a blatant effort to intimidate witnesses”.
“It’s an
incitement of violence,” he said.
“The
president probably doesn’t realize how dangerous his statement is,” Pelosi
added.
Trump, who
was clearly watching the press conference live, unleashed an expletive-laced
Twitter tirade.
“The Do
Nothing Democrats should be focused on building up our Country, not wasting
everyone’s time and energy on BULLSHIT, which is what they have been doing ever
since I got overwhelmingly elected in 2016,” he said.
The
president continued to tweet every few minutes, lashing out at Schiff, who he
called a “lowlife”, until it was time to greet the visiting Finnish president
Sauli Niinistö. The fury of Trump’s commentary reflected how impeachment has
come to consume his focus and attention.
At a press
conference at the end of his meeting with Niinistö, Trump, who repeated one of
his favourite self-descriptions as “a very stable genius”, repeatedly refused
to answer a question about what he had been asking Zelenskiy to do in relation
to the Bidens, and lost his temper at the Reuters journalist asking it.
In his own
struggle with Congress, Pompeo was forced to admit on Wednesday he took part in
the July phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy.
Pompeo made
the admission while on a trip to Rome, after his participation in the call had
been reported in the US press. When asked in a television interview 10 days ago
about the Trump conversation with Zelenskiy, Pompeo had looked quizzical and
implied he was hearing about it for the first time.
On
Wednesday, Pompeo said: “As for was I on the phone call? I was on the phone
call.” But he presented the conversation as part of normal state department
business, trying to bolster a new Ukrainian government against the threat of
Russia.
He referred
dismissively to the growing scandal engulfing the Trump administration as “all
this noise”.
It has
become clear Pompeo has only limited power to stop committees from gathering
evidence for an impeachment inquiry.
One of the
five witnesses deposed, Kurt Volker, former special envoy for Ukraine who
resigned last week, confirmed he would speak to the committees in closed
session on Thursday. The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday that Volker resigned
as Pompeo was attempting to push him out of his post, in the hope of reducing
the pressure on the state department.
Schiff said
Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Kyiv, would appear next week. Press
reports said she was due to give a deposition on 11 October.
The state
department’s inspector general, Steve Linick, went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday
to brief Congress on documents related to relations with Ukraine. After the
briefing, the Maryland Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin described the
material as a collection of unfounded allegations involving the Bidens and
Yovanovitch.
“It’s
essentially a packet of propaganda and disinformation spreading conspiracy
theories,” Raskin said.
The
president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who has played a central role in
the Ukraine scandal, later told CNN that he had sent at least some of the
material to Pompeo’s office earlier this year and that it included information
he had been given by previous Ukrainian prosecutors.
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