Top House Democrats subpoenaed President Trump’s private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, on Monday for documents relating to the accusation that Trump and Giuliani worked to have Ukraine investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings.
In their subpoena, the chairmen of three House committees requested all communications, such as text messages and phone records, relating to the Ukraine matter “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.”
The lawmakers gave the former New York mayor an October 15 deadline to produce the documents.
House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry “includes an investigation of credible allegations that [Giuliani] 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,” Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings, and Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel wrote in a letter to Giuliani accompanying the subpoena.
“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,” they added.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi last week announced the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump amid accusations that he withheld military aid from Ukraine in an effort to prompt a Ukrainian investigation of Biden, the front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.