House Democrats on Monday subpoenaed President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to produce documents related to former Vice President Joe Biden’s Ukraine scandal.
In a letter to Giuliani, chairmen of the House Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs committees requested the president’s attorney to produce the documents by October 15th.
“Your failure or refusal to comply with the subpoena, including at the direction or behest of the president or the White House, shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry and may be used as an adverse inference against you and the president,” the lawmakers wrote to Giuliani.
The development comes after Giuliani said “wouldn’t cooperate” with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) as part of the House Democrats’ formal impeachment inquiry.
“I think he should be removed. If they remove Adam Schiff and put a neutral person in, a Democrat who hasn’t expressed an opinion — if I had a judge in the case and announced he was going to impeach, wouldn’t I move to recuse that judge,” the lawyer said. When pressed by ABC News host George Stephanopoulos on cooperating with Schiff, he clarified his position, stating: “I said I would consider it.”
The House Democrats’ decision to subpoena Giuliani is the latest escalation in their race to complete their impeachment probe sparked by a partisan CIA officer who alleged President Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25th call to look into the business activities of Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden and 2020 White House candidate Joe Biden. The officer’s complaint is not only comprised of second-hand information, but included several inaccuracies. According to CBS News, the complaint falsely claimed that Ulrich Brechbuhl, the Counselor to the U.S. State Department, was on the call.
President Trump has vehemently dismissed the charges, while the White House has released a transcript of the call to show no wrongdoing occurred. Additionally, Zelensky has also denied receiving pressure on the matter from the president, telling reporters last week: “We had I think good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things, and I — so I think and you read it that nobody pushed me.”
Meanwhile, President Trump is demanding that the CIA officer reveal himself, writing on Twitter Monday that, “Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser.”
“I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD-HAND INFORMATION but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the ‘Whistleblower,’” he added.
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