Page:20191203 - full report hpsci impeachment inquiry - 20191203.pdf/208



Donald Trump is the first and only President in American history to openly and indiscriminately defy all aspects of the Constitutional impeachment process, ordering all federal agencies and officials categorically not to comply with voluntary requests or compulsory demands for documents or testimony.

On September 26, President Trump argued that Congress should not be “allowed” to impeach him under the Constitution and that there “should be a way of stopping itmaybe legally, through the courts.” A common theme of his defiance has been his claims that Congress is acting in an unprecedented way and using unprecedented rules. However, the House has been following the same investigative rules that Republicans championed when they were in control.

On October 8, White House Counsel Pat Cipolloneacting on behalf of President Trumpsent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the three investigating Committees confirming that President Trump directed his entire Administration not to cooperate with the House’s impeachment inquiry. Mr. Cipollone wrote: “President Trump cannot permit his Administration to participate in this partisan inquiry under these circumstances.”

Mr. Cipollone’s letter elicited immediate criticism from legal experts across the political spectrum. He advanced remarkably politicized arguments and legal theories unsupported by the Constitution, judicial precedent, and more than 200 years of history. If allowed to stand, the President’s defiance, as justified by Mr. Cipollone, would represent an existential threat to the nation’s Constitutional system of checks and balances, separation of powers, and rule of law.

In January, the House of Representatives voted to adopt its rules for the 116th Congress. These rules authorized House committees to conduct investigations, hold hearings, issue subpoenas for documents and testimony, and depose witnesses.34 Significantly, these authorities are similar to those adopted when Republicans controlled the House during previous Congresses.35

In April, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who was appointed by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and potential obstruction of justice by President Trump, issued a two-volume report.36 In connection with that report, the Committee on the Judiciary began an inquiry into “whether to approve articles of impeachment with respect to the President.”37 The Judiciary