Thursday at her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) commented on White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s letter that said Congress has no right to a “do-over” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Pelosi said, “Let me just say this: The letter that came from the White House yesterday was completely outrageous.”
She continued, “It was totally outrageous. It says the president is above the law and Congress has no right to investigate any of the actions of the president, to hold him accountable in any way.”
She added, “When they are saying unless you have a legislative purpose, you cannot ask any questions. You cannot investigate unless you have a legislative purpose. But one of the purposes that the Constitution spells out for investigation is impeachment. So you can say, and of course with respect, if you said, we need this information to carry out our oversight responsibilities, and among them is impeachment. It doesn’t mean you’re going on the impeachment path, but it means if you had the information you might.”
She concluded, “We hope they would respect their oath of office and the separation of powers, and that they would respond to requests for information. That might be ratcheted up to subpoenaed for information, but just to say that that letter came from the White House was a joke, beneath the dignity of the presidency of the United States, and in defiance of our constitution, shame on them
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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