The House impeachment inquiry confirms it’s now targeting Mike Pence
When the chairs of three House committees released a letter last night about the House impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal, Palmer Report flagged one passage in particular as being important – because it meant that Mike Pence’s actions were being investigated as part of the impeachment inquiry. Sure enough, just now the committee chairs made it official.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, and House Foreign Affairs Committee Eliot Engel sent a publicly available ten page letter to Mike Pence this afternoon, asking him to turn over all documents related to his role in the Ukraine scandal. The letter covers Pence’s apparent knowledge of Trump’s fateful phone call, Pence’s decision not to attend the Ukrainian President’s inauguration, and other key aspects of Pence’s role in the scandal.
This means that Mike Pence is now officially under investigation in the House impeachment inquiry. The inquiry is still only formally targeting Donald Trump for impeachment, but it’s clear where this is headed. If Pence doesn’t cooperate with this letter, he’ll quickly be subpoenaed. If he then ignores that, he’ll be committing felony obstruction of justice, and he’ll be handing House Democrats an article of impeachment against him. Pence will also be setting himself up to go to prison after Trump is ousted.
This leaves Mike Pence with a choice. He can cooperate with the investigation, which will ruin him politically, and which will cause Donald Trump to start leaking even more dirt about him – but the cooperation will likely keep Pence out of prison. Or Pence can cut a resignation plea deal now, and almost certainly avoid prison. Or Pence can refuse to cooperate, get impeached, and end up in prison. It’s his call.
