The House committees leading the impeachment probe into President Trump’s Ukraine dealings are planning to subpoena the White House for relevant documents, according to notice released by the committee chairs.
The plan is to issue the subpoena Friday, after the White House failed to produce the documents sought in voluntary requests by the House last month.
The House began investigating whether Trump was pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political foes in early September, well before a secret whistleblower complaint came to the surface and escalated the probe into an impeachment inquiry.
According to a Wednesday memo from Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, the White House did not respond to two separate document requests the House sent in September.
“The White House’s flagrant disregard of multiple voluntary requests for documents — combined with stark and urgent warnings from the Inspector General about the gravity of these allegations — have left us with no choice but to issue this subpoena,” Cummings said.
The draft of the subpoena outlines several different categories related to the Ukraine matter, in which President Trump and his allies are accused of using official channels of U.S. foreign policy to dig up dirt on Democratic 2020 candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Not surprisingly, the Democrats want documents related to Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — in which he specifically brought up the Biden effort being led by his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani as well as his interest in a conspiracy theory related to the Russia probe.
They also want records pertaining to White House meetings in May and July with top U.S. officials and Ukraine politicians. The draft subpoena additionally seeks White House records related to Giuliani’s and his associates’ Ukrainian endeavor; communications with Attorney General Bill Barr about the Biden or Russia probe efforts; and records of any effort “to conceal, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any documents, records, or communications referring or relating to any of the foregoing matters.”.”
Read Cummings’ full memo, which includes a list of documents the Democrats plan to subpoena, below:
