Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has been subpoenaed to appear Friday morning before the House Intelligence Committee as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, an official working on the inquiry told CNN.
“Mulvaney has the opportunity to uphold his oath to the nation and Constitution by testifying tomorrow under oath about matters of keen national importance,” the official told CNN. “We hope Mulvaney does not hide behind the President’s ongoing efforts to conceal the truth and obstruct our investigation.”
A White House official told CNN on Thursday that Mulvaney is not expected to appear despite the subpoena, noting that the subpoena was expected and doesn’t change the White House’s view on the matter.
The subpoena comes following House investigators’ request on Tuesday that Mulvaney testify on Capitol Hill at the end of the week, ratcheting up their investigation to target the President’s top aide, CNN adds.
The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees sent Mulvaney a letter requesting he appear for a closed-door deposition as part of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Trump and Ukraine.
Mulvaney dramatically confirmed last month that Trump froze nearly $400 million in US security aid to Ukraine partially to pressure the country into investigating Democrats — and proceeded hours later to deny having said so.
“That’s why we held up the money,” Mulvaney said after listing the 2016-related investigation and Trump’s broader concerns about corruption in Ukraine, later adding, “get over it.”
“We do that all the time with foreign policy,” Mulvaney said of the influence of politics in the Trump administration.
Mulvaney also insisted that he knew only of a U.S. request to investigate the handling of a Democratic National Committee server hacked in the 2016 election. But text messages between U.S. diplomats show efforts to get Ukraine to commit to an investigation into Burisma, the company on whose board former Vice President Joe Biden’s son sat. There is no evidence of wrongdoing in Ukraine by either Biden.
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