The Trump White House is throwing down the gauntlet. They’ve had it. After three years of being under siege by the Democrats and their allies in the media, the Trump administration is done playing nice. No one from the administration is going to cooperate. In the meantime, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has declared the president will be held accountable. The White House flat-out told Democrats to go pound sound with their impeachment inquiry. It’s a kangaroo court, which this White House has zero time to entertain (via Politico):
The White House signaled that it will block any cooperation with the House’s impeachment inquiry, calling Democrats’ effort “illegitimate” and “dangerous,” setting up a constitutional clash with Congress.
In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the three committee chairs leading the impeachment probe, White House counsel Pat Cipollone all but declared that the Trump administration will refuse to engage with a process it considers to be constitutionally invalid.
The letter is eight pages and outlines why this impeachment inquiry is a total circus. House Democrats executed this impeachment push based off of a July phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where it was alleged in a whistleblower report that Trump had threatened to withhold military aid unless Zelensky opened a corruption probe into Hunter Biden. The transcript refuted all of that; there is no quid pro quo. The report is based on second-hand accounts. This person, who is reportedly a CIA agent and registered Democrat, never listened in on the call. They also worked with a 2020 candidate. Need I say more about the shoddiness of this attempt? It’s a witch hunt that is fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome of the most extreme sort (via The White House):
Congressional Democrats have flouted the Constitution and all past bipartisan precedent under the guise of an "impeachment inquiry."
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 8, 2019
Full response from the White House: https://t.co/0kC4yFeghg
For example, you have denied the President the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witnesses, to receive transcripts of testimony, to have access to evidence, to have counsel present, and many other basic rights guaranteed to all Americans. You have conducted your proceedings in secret. You have violated civil liberties and the separation of powers by threatening Executive Branch officials, claiming that you will seek to punish those who exercise fundamental constitutional rights and prerogatives. All of this violates the Constitution, the rule of law, and eve1ypastprecedent. Never before in our history has the House of Representatives-under the control of either political party-taken the American people down the dangerous path you seem determined to pursue.
Put simply, you seek to overturn the results of the 2016 election and deprive the American people of the President they have freely chosen. Many Democrats now apparently view impeachment not only as a means to undo the democratic results of the last election, but as a strategy to influence the next election, which is barely more than a year away. As one member of Congress explained, he is "concerned that if we don't impeach the President, he will get reelected." 1 Your highly partisan and unconstitutional effort threatens grave and lasting damage to our democratic institutions, to our system of free elections, and to the American people.
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For the foregoing reasons, the President cannot allow your constitutionally illegitimate proceedings to distract him and those in the Executive Branch from their work on behalf of the American people. The President has a country to lead. The American people elected him to do this job, and he remains focused on fulfilling his promises to the American people. He has important work that he must continue on their behalf, both at home and around the world, including continuing strong economic growth, extending historically low levels of unemployment, negotiating trade deals, fixing our broken immigration system, lowering prescription drug prices, and addressing mass shooting violence. We hope that,in light of the many deficiencies we have identified in your proceedings, you will abandon the current invalid efforts to pursue an impeachment inquiry and join the President in focusing on the many important goals that matter to the American people.
The White House press office also did their part: the president didn’t do anything wrong.
The President has done nothing wrong, and the Democrats know it. For purely political reasons, the Democrats have decided their desire to overturn the outcome of the 2016 election allows them to conduct a so-called impeachment inquiry that ignores the fundamental rights guaranteed to every American. These partisan proceedings are an affront to the Constitution—as they are being held behind closed doors and deny the President the right to call witnesses, to cross-examine witnesses, to have access to evidence, and many other basic rights.
Today, on behalf of President Donald J. Trump, Pat Cipollone, Counsel to the President, sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi and Chairmen Engel, Schiff, and Cummings. The letter demonstrates that the Democrats’ inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, and even the most elementary due process protections. Democrats are pursuing purely partisan goals, including influencing the upcoming 2020 election. In the process, they are violating civil liberties and the separation of powers, threatening Executive Branch officials with punishment simply for exercising their constitutional rights and prerogatives. All of this violates the Constitution, the rule of law, and every past precedent. For these reasons, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to, and will not participate in, this exercise of partisan political theater.
President Trump and his entire Administration will, however, keep fighting for the American people, growing the economy, building prosperity, and protecting America’s interests at home and abroad.
You can read the full letter here.
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