Ukrainegate goes to Pentagon: House Democrats subpoena DoD & OMB as part of Trump impeachment probe

Seeking to impeach President Donald Trump over allegedly using military aid to pressure Ukraine, House Democrats are demanding documents from the Pentagon and the Office of Management and Budget.

Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees of the US House of Representatives have sent out subpoenas, giving the Pentagon and the OMB a week to produce documents related to Trump’s decision to freeze military aid to Ukraine. The deadline for compliance is October 15.

Trump “jeopardized national security by pressing Ukraine to interfere with our 2020 election and by withholding military assistance provided by Congress to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression,” the chairs of the committees said Monday.

Adam Schiff (D-California), Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) and Eliot Engel (D-New York) cited press reports to claim Trump’s decision was intended to pressure Kiev into opening a probe of Democrat presidential front-runner Joe Biden. They first made that claim last month, citing a “whistleblower” complaint about the call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from July.

Biden’s son Hunter had served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company for years, without any qualifications other than his family name, while his father was the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine policy. 

Trump has released the transcript of the call with Zelensky, showing he had not brought up the aid – and it has subsequently emerged that Kiev did not even know the money was being held up at the time.

Democrats have already tried to subpoena the State Department, the White House and Vice President Mike Pence as part of the impeachment inquiry, but their demands have been rebuffed as a proper probe requires a floor vote in the House – which was never taken.

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