The left-wing House Intelligence Committee decided to subpoena President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Monday for "pressuring" Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into former Vice President Joe Biden's corrupt past. President Zelensky has denied any feeling of "pressure" by the Trump administration.
The letter which notified Giuliani of the subpoena was signed by radical Democratic congressman Adam Schiff and House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings. It ordered Giuliani to produce the information they want by October 15th.
“Pursuant to the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry, we are hereby transmitting a subpoena that compels you to produce the documents set fort in the in the accompanying schedule by October 15, 2019,” the letter starts.
“This subpoena is being issued by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under the Rules of the House of Representatives in exercise of its oversight and legislative jurisdiction and after consultation with the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Oversight and Reform,” it continues. “The subpoenaed documents shall be collected as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry and shared among the Committees, as well as with the Committee on the Judiciary as appropriate. Your failure or refusal to comply with the subpoena, including at the direction or behest of the President or the White House, shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry and may be used as an adverse inference against you and the President.”
“The Committees are investigating the extent to which President Trump jeopardized national security by pressing Ukraine to interfere with our 2020 election and by withholding security assistance provided by Congress to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression, as well as any efforts to cover up these matters,” the letter adds.
“Our inquiry includes an investigation of credible allegations that you acted as an agent of the President in a scheme to advance his personal political interests by abusing the power of the Office of the President. A growing public record, including your own statements, indicate that the President, you, and others appear to have pressed the Ukrainian government to pursue two politically -motivated investigations. The first is a prosecution of Ukrainians who provided evidence against Mr. Trump’s convicted campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. The second relates to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is challenging President Trump for the presidency in 2020.
“For example, on September 19, 2019, you admitted on national television that you personally asked the government of Ukraine to target Vice President Biden. During an interview on CNN, Chris Cuomo asked you, ‘Sir, you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?’ You responded, ‘Of course I did.’ In addition to this stark admission, you stated more recently that you are in possession of evidence—in the form of text messages, phone records, and other communications—indicating that you were not acting along and that other Trump Administration officials may have been involved in this scheme. The subpoena requires you to produce all of those communications, and other related documents, to the Commmittees in order to determine the full extent of this effort by the President and his Administration to press Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 presidential election.”
Last Tuesday, the House led by Speaker Pelosi used a second-hand politically biased whistleblower's claim to begin an impeachment inquiry against President Trump.
The whistleblower claimed that President Trump set up a quid pro quo agreement regarding military aid with Ukraine and in return, Ukraine would investigate Joe Biden. House Speaker Pelosi used this second hand account from the whistleblower to begin an impeachment inquiry into President Trump however the transcript which was released the next day, revealed that President Trump did not leverage military aid in any way.
The memo started with President Trump congratulating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on his election win. Shortly after the introduction, President Trump brings up Vice President Joe Biden and how he abused his power to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating his son.
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“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” Trump said in the call. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it…It sounds horrible to me.”
Zelensky then suggested to President Trump that they would appoint a new prosecutor. “He or she will look into the situation specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue, the issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and we will work on the investigation of the case.”
President Trump told Zelensky he would like his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Attorney General Bill Barr to be involved.
“I will have Mr. Giuliani give you call and I’m also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom if it. I’m sure you will figure it out,” he added.
During a meeting with President Trump in New York, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters that he felt in no way pressured by President Trump to investigate Joe Biden.
“Nobody pushed me,” Zelensky said on Wednesday.
“We had a great phone call,” Zelensky added. “It was normal.”
Trump later added: “In other words, there was no pressure and you know there was no pressure.”
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