Democrats accuse Pompeo of 'stonewalling,' after he pushes back on impeachment requests

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US State Department did not engage in improper activity with Ukraine, and is focused on trying to help Kyiv combat corruption. Pompeo made the remarks Thursday on the sidelines of the UN general assembly. (Sept. 26) AP Domestic

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted the House Democrats' impeachment inquiry and suggested he would fight their request to depose five State Department employees involved in the Ukraine controversy – sparking accusations that he was "stonewalling" the proceedings and intimidating witnesses.

Tuesday's rapid volley of accusations between Congress and the Executive Branch foreshadowed a bitter, and possibly protracted, battle as Democrats pursue allegations that President Donald Trump used the power of his office to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election. It also offered the first hint of how the White House would respond to the impeachment process – with legal objections and procedural delays.

"I’m concerned with aspects of the committee’s request that can be understood only as an attempt to intimidate, bully and treat improperly the distinguished professionals of the Department of State," Pompeo wrote in a letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel Tuesday.  

"I will not tolerate such tactics, and I will use all means at my disposal to prevent and expose any attempts to intimidate the dedicated professionals whom I am proud to lead and serve alongside at the Department of State," Pompeo wrote.

He said the committee's request to depose five State Department employees this week and next week is "not feasible" – throwing a wrench into Democrats' plans to move quickly with their inquiry. 

The three Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry charged that Pompeo's response could constitute witness intimidation and obstruction.

“Any effort to intimidate witnesses or prevent them from talking with Congress – including State Department employees – is illegal and will constitute evidence of obstruction of the impeachment inquiry," Engel and the two other Democrats said in a statement Tuesday. The other lawmakers are Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings.

"In response, Congress may infer from this obstruction that any withheld documents and testimony would reveal information that corroborates the whistleblower complaint," the three lawmakers wrote. 

In his letter to Engel, Pompeo did not explicitly say he would block the five State Department employees from participating in the investigation, but he raised a series of objections to the Democrats' request; he said they need more time to retain attorneys and prepare for any depositions, and also suggested the committee had not made a legally binding request for them to be questioned.   

"Your letter raises fundamental legal questions related to the authority of the committee to compel an appearance ... solely by virtue of these letters," he wrote.

Pompeo has come under growing scrutiny for his role in the Ukraine scandal, with Democrats demanding information about the State Department's role in arranging conversations between Ukrainian officials and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer. House Democrats on Friday subpoenaed Pompeo for documents related to Giuliani and Ukraine, and asked to depose five State Department employees involved in the matter.  

"Your failure or refusal to comply with the subpoena shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry,” Engel wrote in a letter to Pompeo Friday along with two other committee chairmen involved in the impeachment inquiry.

Engel, D-N.Y., said he had also notified Pompeo that the three committees had scheduled depositions for five State Department employees, including the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and Trump's special envoy to the eastern European country.

Giuliani has publicly acknowledged that he pressed Ukrainian government officials to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. He said he contacted Ukrainian officials at the direction of the State Department and that he has briefed U.S. diplomats on his conversations.

President Donald Trump also asked Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate Biden during a July 25 phone call between the two leaders. That call prompted an intelligence official to file an anonymous whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump had used the power of his office to "solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential election. 

Pompeo was listening in on that Trump-Zelensky phone call, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and CNN. The State Department's spokeswoman has declined to comment on those reports. 

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has served as a State Department adviser in Republican and Democratic administrations, said that Pompeo should have confronted the president about his request to Zelensky, telling Trump: "The implications of what you’ve done are devastating, both to American foreign policy and prospectively to your own interests. You may have broken the law." 

House Democrats opened an impeachment inquiry last week, focused on probing the "extent to which President Trump may have jeopardized national security" by pressing Ukraine to investigate Biden and by withholding military assistance to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression.

The first witness in the impeachment inquiry – former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch – was scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill Wednesday, followed by Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, on Friday.