Cipollone issued the letter minutes before an end-of-business-hours deadline for the White House to declare whether it would send representatives to the Judiciary Committee.
US President Donald Trump (Photo: IANS)
The White House on Friday rejected an invitation to defend President Donald Trump in his impeachment probe, calling the entire process as “baseless”.
White House chief lawyer Pat Cipollone wrote in a letter to Jerrold Nadler, Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives said, “As you know, your impeachment enquiry is completely baseless”.
Cipollone did not specifically rule out the White House’s participation in the process, the meaning was clear as he said Democrats had “wasted enough of America’s time with this charade.”
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Cipollone issued the letter minutes before an end-of-business-hours deadline for the White House to declare whether it would send representatives to the Judiciary Committee.
On Thursday, President Trump said that he “will win,” after the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives gave the green light for impeachment.
Earlier, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the Democrats will begin drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump.
While impeachment is expected to pass in the Democratic-led House, the Senate is held by a Republican majority and would likely acquit the US president as his 2020 reelection campaign gathers pace.
In November this year, Trump had described the impeachment probe against him as “witch hunt” and said he was “too busy” to watch it.
After almost a month of calling for greater transparency in the enquiry, the White House changed its strategy this week by prohibiting several of its officials from even testifying behind closed doors before the lower house committees.
In September, the impeachment inquiry, which Nancy Pelosi initiated over a complaint by an anonymous whistleblower, is looking into White House’s alleged efforts to withhold military aid to have Ukraine investigate a Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden.
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