House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) letter requesting answers to a series of questions regarding the partisan impeachment inquiry, dismissing his concerns.
Rather than answering the questions, Pelosi told McCarthy that she hoped Republicans would “follow the facts” and proclaimed that Trump asked “yet another foreign power to interfere in the upcoming 2020 elections.”
McCarthy sent Pelosi a letter on Thursday, requesting the speaker to halt the impeachment investigation and answer a series of questions regarding the inquiry:
Those questions were as follows:
- Do you intend to hold a vote of the full House authorizing our impeachment inquiry?
- Do you intend to involve the full House in each critical step of this inquiry, including defining its scope and establishing its rules and procedures?
- Do you intend to grant co-equal subpoena power to both the Chair and Ranking Member at the committee level?
- Do you intend to require that all subpoenas be subject to a vote of the full committee at the request of either the Chair or Ranking Member?
- Do you intend to provide the President’s counsel the right to attend all hearings and depositions?
- Do you intend to provide the president’s counsel the right to present evidence?
- Do you intend to provide the president’s counsel the right to object to the admittance of evidence?
- Do you intend to provide the president’s counsel the right to cross-examine witnesses?
- Do you intend to provide the president’s counsel the right to recommend a witness list?
- Do you intend to refer all findings on impeachment to Chairman Nadler and the Judiciary Committee, as prescribed by Rule X of the Rules of the House, or is Chairman Schiff in charge of leading the inquiry as reported in the press?
“By answering ‘no’ to any of the above, you would be acting in direct contradiction to all modern impeachment inquiries of a sitting president,” McCarthy wrote.
“By answering ‘no’ to any of the above, you would be denying the President the bare minimum rights granted to his predecessors. By answering ‘no’ to any of the above, you would create a process comply devoid of any merit or legitimacy,” he continued.
Pelosi responded to his letter Thursday evening and did not answer any of the questions requested, arguing that the president asked “another foreign power to interfere in the upcoming 2020 elections”– a reference to Trump telling reporters that China “should start an investigation into the Bidens” because “what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.”
As Breitbart News reported:
Hunter Biden’s financial firm scored a $1.5 billion investment deal with the Bank of China just days after he traveled with his father for a visit to the country in 2013.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden confirmed in June to ABC News that Biden remains in his position despite questions about his role at a Chinese investment fund.
Trump posited that the cozy relationship that Hunter Biden had with China was part of the reason that China enjoyed good relations with former President Barack Obama’s administration.
“That’s probably why China, for so many years, has had a sweetheart deal, where China rips off the USA,” Trump said.
Pelosi’s response to McCarthy is as follows:
As Members of Congress, we take a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
The existing rules of the House provide House Committees with full authority to conduct investigations for all matters under their jurisdiction, including impeachment investigations. There is no requirement under the Constitution, under House Rules, or House precedent that the whole House vote before proceeding with an impeachment inquiry.
As you know, our Founders were specifically intent on ensuring that foreign entities did not undermine the integrity of our elections. I receive your letter this morning shortly after the world witnessed President Trump on national television asking yet another foreign power to interfere in the upcoming 2020 elections. We hope you and other Republicans share our commitment to following the facts, upholding the Constitution, protecting our national security, and defending the integrity of our elections at such a serious moment in our nation’s history.
Pelosi said during an interview with ABC on Thursday that Trump’s reelection “would do irreparable damage to the United States.”