Mike Pence’s legal counsel sent a letter to the House committee chairmen notifying them that the vice president would not be cooperating with an impeachment inquiry launched by House Democrats.
Pence’s counsel, Matthew Morgan, said Tuesday that the vice president’s office would not comply with a request from the chairmen to hand over a number of documents relating to the ongoing investigation into President Trump.
The move comes after the White House said it doesn’t recognize the impeachment inquiry to be valid because there was no floor vote on the matter. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the launch of an inquiry in September after news of an intelligence community whistleblower complaint against Trump surfaced.
In the letter, Morgan writes that “the purported ‘impeachment inquiry’ has been designed and implemented in a manner that calls into question your commitment to fundamental fairness and due process rights.”
“Instead of being accountable to the American people and casting a vote to authorize what all agree is a substantial constitutional step, you have instead attempted to avoid this fundamental requirement by invoking the Speaker’s announcement of an ‘official impeachment inquiry’ at a press conference?” Morgan adds.
Pelosi has not yet called for a floor vote on the inquiry, although she has hinted at the possibility. The California Democrat claims that a vote is “not required” for the committees to launch the investigation into the president.
