Pompeo pushes back on impeachment subpoenas

(NBC News) The impeachment inquiry against President Trump is facing a new roadblock . Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is pushing back against a House committee’s request to interview current and former State Department officials.

Pompeo accused House Democrats Tuesday of trying to “intimidate” and “bully” them.

Critics say the administration’s refusal is obstruction.

“They know that if they slow walk it, it’s a way to defeat the purposes and the need for the public to know and for congress to know,” says Tennessee’s Representative Steve Cohen. “This administration cannot allow the public to know what they’ve done.”

On Monday it was revealed Pompeo was on the July call when President Trump asked the leader of Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

That call is the center of the whistleblower complaint that triggered the impeachment inquiry against President Trump.

President Trump, meanwhile, is ramping up his rhetoric, hammering the whistleblower for having only “second-hand information” and asking why he’s not “entitled to interview and learn everything about” him or her.

Overnight the intelligence community’s inspector general issued a rare rebuttal, saying the whistleblower did have some first-hand knowledge of the situation, but also pointing out that’s not required to file a complaint.

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