Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff pointed out that a Justice Department lawyer said in court earlier today that the House can impeach a president for defying congressional subpoenas, sharply contradicting Trump’s lawyers in the impeachment trial.
Schiff’s answer elicited laughter from the senators sitting in the chamber where the trial is being held.
Asked by a federal judge what the House can do to enforce its subpoenas, Justice Department lawyer James Burnham said without hesitation that the House can use its impeachment powers, among other options, like withholding appropriations.
The topic came up in a court hearing about the 2020 census. The House Oversight Committee sued the Justice Department and Commerce Department in November, asking a judge to enforce its subpoenas for documents.
The case revolves around the controversial and ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the census.
Senate Democrats posed a question to both the impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers about who was paying for Rudy Giuliani’s travel and expenses as the president’s personal lawyer pressured Ukraine to launch investigations of Joe Biden and the 2016 election.
Neither the managers nor Trump’s lawyers answered the question, but lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff used the question to rail against Giuliani’s efforts.
Schiff said Giuliani was focused on a “domestic, corrupt” task while speaking to Ukrainian officials, and he warned that the entire country was “paying the freight for it.”
Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff took the question first, and he said it was hard for him to imagine such circumstances, but Schiff emphasized that Trump’s approach to requesting the investigations was undeniably inappropirate.
Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin then took the podium and chose to push back against the notion that Trump requested an investigation of Joe Biden.
Philbin pointed senators to the White House memo on Trump’s July phone call with the Ukrainian president, which included Trump asking for a “favor” and going on to discuss possible corruption investigations.
