White House blockade of impeachment probe likely to hold ahead of open
hearings
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[November 08, 2019]
By Patricia Zengerle and Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House
blockade of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry of President Donald
Trump seemed likely to hold firm on Friday, as congressional officials
said they expected two administration officials to rebuff a request to
testify.
The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee late on Thursday
subpoenaed acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to appear for
a closed-door deposition on Friday, an official working on the
impeachment inquiry said.
The panel, along with the House Foreign Relations and Oversight
committees, has also called Mark Sandy, associate director for national
security programs at the White House Office of Management and Budget
(OMB), for interviews behind closed doors on Friday.
Lawmakers want to ask Mulvaney and Sandy about OMB's decision last
summer to block, without explanation to Congress, nearly $400 million in
security assistance for Ukraine that had been approved by lawmakers.
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Mulvaney, a former Republican House member, started his tenure at the
Trump White House as director of the budget office. Due to his role at
OMB, Sandy likely would have been involved in the decision.
Congressional investigators are trying to determine whether Trump told
the Kiev government it would not get the aid unless it agreed to launch
an investigation of Hunter Biden, the son of former U.S. Vice President
Joe Biden, one of Trump's main Democratic rivals as he runs for
re-election in 2020.
Mulvaney acknowledged at an Oct. 17 news conference that the White House
had withheld the assistance. "I have news for everybody: Get over it.
There is going to be political influence in foreign policy," Mulvaney
said, although he later contradicted himself, saying in a White House
statement: "There was absolutely no quid pro quo."
'WITCH HUNT'
Trump has denied wrongdoing and disparaged the investigation as a
politically motivated "witch hunt." A White House spokesman said earlier
this week that Mulvaney did not intend to comply with the request to
appear..
Officials did not immediately respond on Thursday to a request for
comment on whether that still held, and on Sandy's intentions.
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President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Monroe, Louisiana,
U.S., November 6, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
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Mulvaney has also ignored an Oct. 4 subpoena from the House
committees to provide documents for the investigation.
Mulvaney is now Trump's top aide, and the White House, claiming
executive privilege, has argued that any official close to Trump
should not have to provide depositions to congressional
investigators.
So far, most officials who work in the executive branch have
declined to cooperate with the investigation, although an adviser to
Vice President Mike Pence appeared as requested on Thursday.
The House committees dispute the privilege argument. "As Mulvaney
knows from his previous service in the House of Representatives,
both Republican and Democratic-led committees have conducted
depositions for decades with high-level White House aides - include
White House Chiefs of Staff," they said in an emailed statement.
The three House committees are wrapping up the closed-door phase of
their investigation before open hearings start next Wednesday with
testimony from two diplomats who have been interviewed behind closed
doors, William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State George Kent.
This week, the committees have been releasing transcripts of the
closed-door interviews, including with Taylor, Kent and former U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who appears at a public
hearing on Nov. 15.
Trump abruptly recalled Yovanovitch as ambassador in May.
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Another transcript release is expected on Friday, although the
committees declined to say which it would be.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Susan Cornwell; Additional
reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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