The GuardianUS President Donald Trump pushed the US toward a constitutional crisis on Tuesday when his legal counsel said that the White House would refuse to cooperate with the US Congress’s impeachment inquiry. “Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone said in a letter to Democratic leaders in the US House of Representatives. The eight-page missive came after the Trump administration abruptly blocked a key witness in the Ukraine scandal from appearing before the congressional impeachment inquiry and sets up a clash between the White House and Congress — the executive and legislative branches — in the weeks ahead. In particular, the White House objects that the House did not formally vote to begin the impeachment inquiry, breaking with precedent set in the inquiries into former US presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. “The White House letter is only the latest attempt to cover up his betrayal of our democracy, and to insist that the president is above the law,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Source: Taipei Times October 09, 2019 16:07 UTC