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Trump Gears Up for Fight, Vowing to Stonewall Impeachment Probe

The White House delivered its most forceful response yet late Tuesday in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Trump Gears Up for Fight, Vowing to Stonewall Impeachment Probe
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media outside of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. (Photographer: Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s counter-attack against House Democrats is taking shape as the White House moved to consolidate Republican support on Capitol Hill and vowed to block any cooperation with the spreading impeachment inquiry.

The White House delivered its most forceful response yet late Tuesday in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, declaring the inquiry unconstitutional and invalid, and saying neither the president nor his administration would participate in it.

Trump Gears Up for Fight, Vowing to Stonewall Impeachment Probe

The letter capped a tumultuous day for Trump, who earlier had to smooth things over with some of his staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill after surprising them by canceling the scheduled testimony of a key U.S. diplomat at the center of the impeachment inquiry. Separately, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, invited one of the president’s most fiery defenders -- his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani -- to testify in public.

Trump had spent the past several days largely directing his own response to Democratic moves, mostly through his Twitter feed. But his efforts to build a more formal impeachment response team came after outside polling showed he was losing ground, with a growing number of Americans supporting the Democrats’ inquiry and impeachment itself.

GOP Coordination

Trump on Tuesday enlisted former House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy in his impeachment fight. Gowdy, a former prosecutor from South Carolina who left Congress after the last session, will help lead Trump’s legal strategy and coordination with Republican lawmakers.

Frustration hit a boiling point for some of Trump’s top allies on Capitol Hill when they were caught off-guard by news Tuesday morning that Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, was abruptly blocked by the administration from appearing before committees leading the inquiry.

Those lawmakers, which included several leading House Republicans, had been preparing for Sondland’s testimony, believing he was ready to defend the president. Instead, they were left trying to explain why the State Department didn’t even want him to answer questions.

Trump Gears Up for Fight, Vowing to Stonewall Impeachment Probe

Their concerns led to an impromptu meeting at the White House, including discussions with Trump, where administration officials agreed to improve communication on their impeachment strategy with allies who are on the front lines, people familiar with those talks said.

By early evening on Tuesday, the administration released a letter from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to Pelosi, saying Trump’s lawyers were being denied due process, including the right to call and cross-examine witnesses, receive transcripts of testimony, or have access to evidence.

“You have designed and implemented your inquiry in a manner that violates fundamental fairness and constitutionally mandated due process,” Cipollone wrote in the eight-page letter. “Put simply, you seek to overturn the results of the 2016 election and deprive the American people of the President they have freely chosen.”

‘Evidence of Obstruction’

Pelosi responded with a statement dismissing the letter and saying that continued resistance from the administration would be “regarded as further evidence of obstruction.”

“The White House letter is only the latest attempt to cover up his betrayal of our democracy, and to insist that the President is above the law,” Pelosi said. “Despite the White House’s stonewalling, we see a growing body of evidence that shows that President Trump abused his office and violated his oath to ‘protect, preserve and defend the Constitution.’”

The White House position is likely to delay Democrats, who had scheduled more witnesses this week, including the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine on Friday.

Until Tuesday, Trump’s push-back was mostly confined to his Twitter feed and television appearances by his GOP supporters. But the risks of an improvised self-defense have become more clear, and the administration appears to be adjusting.

“The days of this kind of cooperation, after the way that these witnesses are being treated, that’s basically coming to an end,” Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal attorneys, said Tuesday on his online radio show.

Sekulow added that “every option is on the table” for the president’s legal team to thwart the impeachment investigation.

The ramped-up effort comes as opinion polls show impeachment gaining public support, a signal that the probe could threaten Trump’s political standing heading into 2020. A new Washington Post poll showed 58% of respondents believe the House was right to open an inquiry. Among those, 49% believe Trump should be removed from office.

Potential Spectacle

The administration’s plan, which still appears to be taking shape, involves grinding the impeachment inquiry to a crawl by refusing requests for witnesses and documents. That could frustrate House Democratic leaders, who are pushing to complete articles of impeachment by the end of next month.

The White House also is now incorporating the approaches favored by his allies to muddy the water by raising process complaints -- including why testimony is being taken behind closed doors. That’s a strategy Trump’s legal and political allies already used successfully during former Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s Russia investigation.

Even if the Senate were to hold a hearing with Giuliani, for example, it would give the Trump White House a high-profile congressional forum to present its own narrative regarding unsubstantiated allegations about former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential challenger to Trump in 2020. Giuliani has accused Biden and his son, Hunter, of corrupt dealings involving a Ukrainian energy company.

But it also would force Giuliani to answer questions about his months-long effort to push Ukraine’s government to launch a probe at the same time Trump withheld military aid to the country’s new government, setting up another potential spectacle.

Giuliani has not committed to testifying and indicated he is weighing whether his information is covered by attorney-client privilege.

“Very interested but need to review because of privilege issue,” he said in a text message.

--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis, Josh Wingrove and Jennifer Jacobs.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jordan Fabian in Washington at jfabian6@bloomberg.net;Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Joshua Gallu, Anna Edgerton

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