Trump says he wants Pompeo, Mulvaney to testify in Senate trial
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President Trump said in a press conference on Tuesday that he would like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and "many other people" to testify in a Senate trial if the House votes to approve articles of impeachment.
"For the hearings, we don't get a lawyer. We don't get any witnesses. We want Biden. We want his son, Hunter. Where's Hunter? We want the son. We want Schiff. We want to interview these people. Well, they said, 'No, you can't do it.' We can't do it. So, when it's fair, and it will be fair in the Senate, I would love to have Mike Pompeo, I'd love to have Mick, I'd love to have Rick Perry and many other people testify. But I don't want them to testify when this is a total fix."
Why it matters: Pompeo, Mulvaney and Perry all failed to comply with subpoenas issued by the House committees investigating allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine's president to investigate his domestic political opponents.
- Republicans have criticized the witnesses who testified in the House's hearings for not having "firsthand knowledge" of Trump's decision-making, despite the fact that the White House officials who would have that knowledge were blocked from testifying.
The big picture: Trump criticized tomorrow's House Judiciary Committee hearing, which will examine the constitutional basis of impeachment with four legal scholars. "Nobody needs to know anything about constitutional law," Trump argued, lamenting that three of the scholars were picked by Democrats.
- On Sunday, the Trump administration announced that it would not send a lawyer to take part in the panel's first impeachment hearing.
Trump also reiterated that he wants House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to testify in a Senate trial, but did not answer a question about what he wants to learn from his testimony. Instead, he called Schiff a "manic" and a "deranged human being."
- "I think he's a very sick man," Trump said. "And he lies. Adam Schiff made up my conversation with the president of Ukraine."
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