Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is among the latest Trump administration officials subpoenaed to provide documents regarding a congressional impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Pompeo has already failed the first deadline for set by a letter from the Democratic controlled House committees for Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight for him to turn over records pertaining to Trump’s phone call. The request included records relating to discussions between Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the Ukrainian government, according to CNN.
Pompeo must now respond to a new October 4 deadline, according to the latest document request.
The requests, surround allegations Trump withheld a Ukraine military aid package to pressure Zelensky to investigate Trump’s potential 2020 political opponent, Joe Biden, over allegations Biden pressured separate Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor investigating Burisma Holdings, a company Biden’s son Hunter worked for.
A transcript of the call, released Wednesday, shows Zelensky asked to speak to Giuliani, though it was not clear what capacity Giuliani was serving in to handle such investigative pursuits.
The Trump administration released the whistleblower complaint on Thursday. The whistleblower, who largely admits to secondhand knowledge and conclusions drawn from prior news media reporting, focused heavily on the allegation Trump “sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help the President’s 2020 reelection bid.”
Zelensky himself in a Wednesday press appearance alongside Trump said that “nobody pushed me” to begin any investigation.
In a Thursday press appearance reported on by Reuters, Pompeo expressed no advanced knowledge of the allegations in the whistleblower complaint.
“I haven’t had the chance to read the whistleblower complaint yet,” Pompeo said. “I read the first couple of paragraphs and then got busy today, but I’ll ultimately get a chance to see it; if I understand it right, it’s from someone who has secondhand knowledge.”
He said to the best of his own knowledge, state department officials did act appropriately and consistently with the Trump administration’s efforts to build further diplomatic relations with the government of the Ukraine.
Pompeo further expressed U.S. state department support for Zelensky’s own efforts at an anti-corruption platform for the Ukraine.
“It would be a good thing for the Ukraine, it would be a good thing for Europe. It would push back against Russia in important ways as well,” he said.
Democrats in the House of Representatives have called for investigations since the whistleblower complaints first became public.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also called this week for an impeachment inquiry against Trump, despite expressing previous uncertainty for the move.
Trump’s one-time 2016 Presidential election rival Hillary Clinton has also came out for impeachment this week; a move she said is “not a political statement” but a “harsh reality, and we must act.”
