Pompeo: State Department has issued ‘initial response’ to House subpoena for Ukraine documents – Washington Examiner

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has indicated that his department has issued an “initial response” to congressional Democrats’ request for Ukraine-related documents.

“The State Department sent a letter last night to Congress, which is our initial response to the document request,” Pompeo said at a news conference in Greece on Saturday. “We will obviously do all the things we are required to by law.”

His insistence that the department has responded to the request comes after reports that he failed to meet a House subpoena deadline on Friday.

“Secretary Pompeo has failed to meet the deadline to produce documents required by the subpoena,” a House Foreign Affairs Committee aide told CNN at the time. “However, the State Department has contacted the Committees on this matter and we hope the Department will cooperate in full promptly. Apart from the outstanding subpoena, we look forward to hearing from Ambassadors Sondland and Yovanovitch next week.”

The chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, House Intelligence Committee, and House Oversight Committee sent a letter to the State Department last week demanding that Pompeo turn over documents related to allegations that President Trump set up a quid pro quo deal with the president of Ukraine to investigate 2020 Democratic front-runner and former Vice President Joe Biden.

The subpoena is part of an impeachment inquiry into President Trump over his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which the president urged the foreign leader to investigate Biden and his son Hunter for corruption. It came amid reports that Pompeo was listening in on the call, which sparked a whistleblower complaint.

Pompeo initially responded to the subpoena by accusing Democrats of trying to “bully” department employees. On Wednesday, Pompeo confirmed that he was indeed “on the phone call,” but he repeated his claim that Democrats are “bullying, intimidating State Department employees.”

On Friday, House Democrats also subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Mike Pence for documents related to Ukraine.