House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings subpoenas White House for Ukraine documents

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: NBC

House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., subpoenaed the White House on Friday for documents related to the House impeachment investigation after administration officials failed to comply with repeated requests for the materials.

The subpoena seeks documents related to President Donald Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic candidate for president. Cummings issued the subpoena in consultation with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.

"We deeply regret that President Trump has put us — and the nation — in this position, but his actions have left us with no choice but to issue this subpoena," the three chairmen wrote in a letter addressed to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

The Democratic chairmen warned the White House on Wednesday that they planned to issue the subpoena by the end of the week if officials refused to comply with the request for relevant materials.



Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1062416

[PJMcK]

1. BOOM!

This is going to be an interesting period in U.S. History.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Good timing.

The good team is hitting its stride.

[Evolve Dammit]

3. Thank you Congressman Cummings for your service and perseverance.

[orangecrush]

4. Not fooling around!

[Kablooie]

5. This only means that...

Once they ignore the subpoena the House can vote on contempt of Congress.
If a majority votes yes then Congressional lawyers can file a civil lawsuit and ask a judge to rule that compliance is required.
Failure to comply can trigger "contempt of court" and can result in fines or imprisonment.

The other options are detaining the person, or to bring criminal charges but neither is done today and certainly wouldn't be don't to federal officials.

But any of these remedies will be enforced by Barr's justice department and he's likely to order that they not be enforced so there's really no value in a subpoena other than to put Contempt of Congress on someone's record and to make it sound serious.

It looks like theres no way for Congress to ever see the documents they need to fully support the impeachment.

[Buckeyeblue]

6. Then does the impeachment become obstruction?

[riversedge]

7. If WH does not hand over the docs, it will be an Obstruction article of impeachment.