The head of a leading House committee said Wednesday that he plans to issue a subpoena to the White House for documents related to Ukraine as part of an ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
The subpoena will be issued Friday, said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the head of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, in a memo to members of that panel.
Cummings' panel and other committees are investigating Trump's pressuring of the president of Ukraine to launch a probe of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, allegedly by withholding U.S. military aid to that country.
Biden is a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
"I do not take this step lightly," Cummings wrote in the memo to his committee.
"Over the past several weeks, the Committees tried several times to obtain voluntary compliance with our requests for documents, but the White House has refused to engage with — or even respond to — the Committees."
The memo also says, "The White House's flagrant disregard of multiple voluntary requests for documents — combined with stark and urgent warnings from the Inspector General about the gravity of these allegations — have left us with no choice but to issue this subpoena."
White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham, in response to the memo, said in an email, "This is nothing but more document requests, wasted time, and taxpayer dollars that will ultimately show the President did nothing wrong."
"The dems can continue with their kangaroo court, the President will continue to work on behalf of this country," Grisham said.
The planned subpoena comes on the heels of the issuance in the past week of other House committee demands for related documents to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and to Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
The latest subpoena will demand White House documents about Trump's phone calls with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in April and July, the identity of people who listened in on those calls, and communications between White House officials relating to the call in July.
During that call, according to a summary released by the White House, Trump pressed Zelensky to investigate the Bidens.
