It likely will take court action to get President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to testify before House committees in connection with his activities in Ukraine and the impeachment inquiry on President Donald Trump, Rep. Joaquin Castro said Wednesday, but he is confident the former New York City mayor will eventually take the stand.
"He's done many interviews where he's talked about his activities for the president and visiting with the Ukrainians," the Texas Democrat told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "At one point he mentioned that he wasn't going there as the president's lawyer. If that's the case, he loses any kind of attorney/client privilege. So we need to figure out exactly what role he was in."
Lawmakers will be looking for several answers from Giuliani and others, including what Trump asked him to do, said Castro, based on the telephone call between Trump and the Ukraine president that spurred a whistleblower's report.
"It looks, very clearly from that phone call, like (Trump) was betraying his oath of office, abusing power and sending these guys over there for political purposes to discredit a political rival and ensure his re-election potentially in 2020," Castro said.
Trump has "put together a political operation" from the White House and is "running his re-election campaign at the taxpayer expense" by sending his "top people to do his political bidding," he added.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who Wednesday confirmed he was on Trump's call with the Ukrainian president, is using a "stalling tactic" because he doesn't want to testify before House committees, said Castro, but lawmakers can also take the matter to court.
He said he does believe, as House Nancy Pelosi noted, that the impeachment inquiry should be done as quickly as possible.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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