House Democrats Set Mike Pompeo Up For New Article Of Impeachment

House Democrats suspected that Mike Pompeo would try to deny them State Department witnesses, which is why they are going to use his behavior for a new article of impeachment.

NBC’s Geoff Bennett conjectured:

Here’s what’s so interesting about this, we have not yet heard from respective committee chairs in response to Secretary Pompeo’s letter. We’ll start with the caveat, we are not in the speculation business, but I will make an informed conjecture based on my reporting. I think what House Democrats did, I think they set these depositions knowing full well in advance that the Secretary of State would be less than fully compliant. And if he ended up being less than fully compliant, they would be prepared to use that stonewalling, as they see it, as grounds for a separate article of impeachment, obstruction of congress.

The reason I say that is that was the strategy, house Democrats tell me, behind calling Corey Lewandowski, the president’s former campaign manager, in for a hearing. The televised portion of that hearing was a bit of a circus. I asked top House Democrats why they would invite that spectacle into their impeachment proceeding. Their response was, you’re assuming we were actually trying to get real answers from Corey Lewandowski.

That’s not what we’re trying to achieve. We’re trying to show he’s part of the administration, the administration tried to claim executive privilege over his testimony, and they will use that as an article of the letter that the secretary of state sent said these depositions were set without subpoenas. We could see the depositions set with subpoenas, and they could keep in their back pocket the potential to draft a separate article of impeachment on this obstruction piece.

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Democrats are expecting answers from witnesses, and subpoenas to be complied with. They are building articles of impeachment and by not complying, Trump and Pompeo are playing right into the hands of House Democrats and giving them more of the evidence that they need to impeach Donald Trump.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association