Politico | White House won’t take part in first House Judiciary impeachment hearing
- The second round of impeachment hearings will begin Wednesday
- Donald Trump has denied any wrongdoing, calling the impeachment inquiry a ‘witch hunt’
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney on ‘politico.com on December 1, 2019.
The White House informed House Democrats on Sunday that it will not participate in the Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing.
The decision indicates that US President Donald Trump has listened to his allies and some congressional Republicans who argued that a White House presence at the hearing would validate a process they have harangued as illegitimate and partisan.
It also means Trump will lean heavily on his closest Republican allies on the panel – including Jim Jordan of Ohio, John Ratcliffe of Texas and Matt Gaetz of Florida – to mount an impeachment defence during the Judiciary panel’s first hearing on Wednesday.
“Under the current circumstances, we do not intend to participate in your Wednesday hearing,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, adding that “an invitation to an academic discussion with law professors does not begin to provide the president with any semblance of a fair process”.