Being a policy wonk and politics writer the way other folks are baseball fans and fantasy owners means that I spend a lot of time on theories and theoreticals, hypotheses and hypotheticals, trying to see all possible sides of any given political situation.
As all of this rapid-fire news has come down the pike over the last 72 hours or so, I couldn’t help but think a few things. Sometimes that means I guess something correctly before we know it officially, but sometimes it’s just my own thoughts on a subject. And what I thought right around yesterday afternoon was that the House Democrats should immediately send out subpoenas to a number of people inside the Trump administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Attorney General Bill Barr, and maybe even Mick Mulvaney, the President’s Chief of Staff, just for good measure.
The upside to it would be that maybe we get some answers out of these guys about who gave directions to Rudy Giuliani, who released military funding and when, who knew what about the whistleblower and when, and what the hell Donald Trump was doing the whole time. OR, maybe they’d lie under oath and we could nail one of these guys as well. OR, maybe the President would order them not to testify, and we could add blatant obstruction to the offenses he’s about to be impeached for.
The downside doesn’t exist. There is literally no reason for them not to send out these subpoenas, and I don’t know why they hav— what’s that? They subpoenaed Mike Pompeo? Okay, now it’s getting good.
In fact, it turns out that Adam Schiff, whose committee is taking the lead in the impeachment inquiry, told CNN on Friday that:
We are working on potential hearings, potential depositions, I expect subpoenas are going to go out. We will move as expeditiously as possible but we have to see what witnesses are going to make themselves available and what witnesses are going to require compulsion.”
So these guys are ON IT. The whistleblower himself told Schiff that he wanted to testify before his committee next week. They’re already planning to summon T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, Pompeo’s deputy at the State Department, who was actually in the room during the phone call that kicked this whole thing off. I’m guessing they’ll probably bring in at least one or two more of the guys I mentioned, plus Rudy of course.
Sure, it’s an informed guess. But it sure feels good to be right.
Featured image via screen capture
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