The House impeachment inquiry broke into a full-throated battle between the executive and legislative branches Tuesday, as congressional Democrats and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traded threats and accusations, President Trump questioned whether a leader of the probe should be arrested, and a senior Democrat said Trump should be imprisoned in “solitary confinement.”
As the scope of the inquiry broadened, it touched a wide swath of top administration officials. In letters to Vice President Pence and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, demanded answers by Friday to questions about what they knew, when they knew it and their roles in Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine.
But much of the day’s turmoil centered on Pompeo, who said in a letter to the chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight and Reform committees heading the investigation that five State Department officials called to give depositions over the next two weeks would not appear as scheduled.