Elizabeth Warren: ‘I Assume’ Joe Biden Would Comply with a Senate Subpoena

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told reporters on Saturday that she assumes if the Senate chooses to subpoena Joe Biden (D) as part of the impeachment trial, the former vice president would comply.

Warren suggested to reporters in Iowa on Saturday that she is taking Biden at his word and believes that he would comply with a Senate subpoena, but she maintained that the lawmakers should continue to focus on President Trump’s “abuse of power.”

“Donald Trump is being impeached for abuse of power, and that’s where our focus should be,” she told reporters, according to the Hill.

“Shame on him for trying to switch this over to something else,” she continued, pivoting to Biden.

“But Joe Biden has said that he has always abided by every lawful order, and if there’s a lawful order on a subpoena, then I assume he would follow it,” she added.

She also said that in addition to focusing on Trump’s “abuse of power,” lawmakers should “be focusing on the subpoenas that have already been issued for Don McGahn and for Mick Mulvaney, who have firsthand knowledge of what the president did.”

“That’s where the testimony should come from in this impeachment trial, but that’s the part that Mitch McConnell and the president just don’t want to put out there in public, and that’s wrong,” she added.

While Biden indicated last week that he would not comply with a Senate subpoena, he attempted to backtrack in a tweet over the weekend, contending that there would be “no legal basis” for Republicans to subpoena for his testimony.

As Breitbart News reported, he wrote:

I want to clarify something I said yesterday. In my 40 years in public life, I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office — unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence — cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests. But I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial. That is the point I was making yesterday and I reiterate: this impeachment is about Trump’s conduct, not mine. The subpoenas should go to witnesses with testimony to offer to Trump’s shaking down the Ukraine government — they should go to the White House:

I want to clarify something I said yesterday. In my 40 years in public life, I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office — unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence — cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 28, 2019

The subpoenas should go to witnesses with testimony to offer to Trump’s shaking down the Ukraine government — they should go to the White House.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 28, 2019

Biden’s testimony would not be irrelevant, as the former vice president suggests:

The articles of impeachment claim that President Trump asked Ukraine to investigate Biden’s past conflict of interest — ordering the firing of a prosecutor while his son, Hunter, was on the board of Burisma, one of Ukraine’s most corrupt companies — “in pursuit of personal political benefit.”

The House Judiciary Committee report accompanying the articles claimed there was no “legitimate national security or foreign policy interest” in investigating the Bidens, Burisma, or claims that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

However, many of the witnesses during the House impeachment inquiry “admitted that Biden’s conflict of interest was a problem — one the Obama administration did nothing to resolve and may even have tried to conceal.”