Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says his department will not comply with subpoenas issued by the House for documents relating to the May firing of the department’s Inspector General and the announced investigation into Hunter Biden’s position on a Ukrainian energy company’s board of directors, the Associated Press reports.
Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Elliot Engel (D-NY) issued the subpoenas on July 31st and August 3rd seeking the information after, he said, the department had stonewalled requests through normal channels.
Pompeo replied that the subpoenas were “outrageous” and that the committee should request the Biden documents from the Senate, to which the State Department had supplied the documents earlier. The House is controlled by Democrats; the Senate, by republicans.
State’s acting head of legislative affairs, Ryan Kaldahl, said that the department was not obligated to provide the documents because the House was not conducting a legitimate investigation nor did it have a legitimate legislative purpose.
The committee is looking into the May dismissal by President Trump of State’s Inspector General, Stephen Linick, who was in the process of investigating a number of issues regarding Pompeo personally, including use of government resources to explore a Senate run in his home state of Kansas.
Pompeo had used State Department aircraft to travel to Kansas no fewer than four times, where he met with key republican donors and bundlers during trips he described as official business. Weeks after firing Linick, an independent government agency, the Office of Special Counsel, said it found no wrongdoing on Pompeo’s account.