Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the chairmen of three House committees on Tuesday that he had no intention of obeying subpoenas for documents and depositions by other State Department officials, a day before the deadline for responding to House Democrats' orders.
Pompeo told House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) that their subpoena for documents regarding President Donald Trump's communications with the Ukrainian government amounted to "bullying."
The subpoena "can be understood only as an attempt to 'intimidate, bully, and treat improperly, the distinguished professionals of the Department of State,'" wrote the secretary.
Pompeo's response amounted to an obstruction of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, tweeted journalist Judd Legum.
The inquiry began last week after Democrats learned that Trump had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate 2020 Democratic candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Pompeo was the first administration official to be subpoenaed. Rudy Guiliani, the president's lawyer, was issued a subpoena Monday to provide information about his alleged pressuring of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
Also on Monday, the Wall Street Journalreported that Pompeo--who for days had claimed to have little knowledge of Trump's call with Zelensky, as he had not yet read the transcript--was in fact on the phone call.
Pompeo is "in this up to his ears," tweeted journalist Lili Loofbourow.
Contrary to Pompeo's complaint, some critics said on social media, Pompeo's refusal to respond to elected representatives' demands amounted to the bullying of the American people.
Some also noted the contrast between the Trump administration's response to Congress's demands regarding allegations that the president sought to bribe a foreign power to gain assistance winning the 2020 election, and that of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who spent 11 hours testifying about the deaths of four Americans in a 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Pompeo, who was among the Republicans on a House select committee who aggressively questioned Clinton in 2015, is also continuing to investigate the former secretary of state amid developing news about Trump's impeachment inquiry.
Pompeo was given until Friday, Oct. 4 to produce the documents requested by the committees. Former U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was scheduled to give a deposition Wednesday, with other depositions by Kurt Volker, former envoy to Ukraine; Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent; U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland; and State Department Counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl planned for the coming days.
Pompeo's apparent plan to direct the officials not to give depositions amounts to "blatant obstruction," one critic tweeted.
