Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the State Department intends to follow the law in the House impeachment investigation and vigorously defended President Donald Trump, dismissing questions about the president’s attempts to push Ukraine and China to investigate a Democratic political rival.
The Trump administration and House Democrats often disagree about what the law requires, leaving open the question of how Pompeo may interpret Democrats’ demands for key information about Trump’s handling of Ukraine.
Pompeo, speaking Saturday in Greece, said the State Department sent a letter to Congress 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 next week. Among them is Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, another key figure in the probe.
The 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 phone call in which Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter — sparking a whistleblower 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 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.
Asked Wednesday whether the White House intended to comply, Trump told reporters, “I always cooperate,” even as he dismissed the inquiry as “a hoax.” A day later, however, Trump had a different answer for the same question, saying he would instead leave the matter to his lawyers.
“That’s up to them to decide,” he said, “But the whole investigation is crumbling.”
By Friday, however, Trump confirmed reports the White House was preparing a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., arguing that Congress cannot undertake an impeachment investigation without first having a vote to authorize it. Pelosi has insisted 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, meanwhile, made clear that the State Department had yet to turn over any document, but intended to follow a proper review. And he said he would do so faster than the Obama administration.
“I remember precisely once when I was on that side and we were looking for documents, I remember precisely how long it took for those documents to come across,” he said in an apparent reference to his experience as a congressman during the investigation into the 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya.
“We’re going to beat that. We’re going to be more responsive than the Obama administration was in the years that preceded this particular Congress,” he said.
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.
