Trump lawyer targeted as rhetoric heats up

US president's treason, civil war tweets follow Democrat subpoena

WASHINGTON - At one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, US President Donald Trump raged about treason. At the other, the methodical march toward impeachment proceeded apace.

Democrats on Monday subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer who was at the heart of Trump's efforts to get Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden's family. That was after one of Trump's staunchest defenders, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said he would have "no choice" but to consider articles of impeachment if the House of Representatives approved them.

With Congress out of session for observance of Jewish holidays, Democrats moved aggressively against Giuliani, requesting by Oct 15 "text messages, phone records and other communications" that they referred to as possible evidence. They also requested documents and depositions from three of his business associates.

Meanwhile, the circle of officials with knowledge of Trump's phone call to Ukraine's president widened with the revelation that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo listened in on the July 25 conversation.

Pompeo's presence on the Ukraine call, confirmed by two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an internal matter, provided the first confirmation that a Cabinet official heard Trump press Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the membership on the board of a Ukrainian gas company of Hunter Biden, a son of the former US vice-president. It is that call, and the circumstances surrounding it, that are fueling the new Democratic drive for impeachment.

McConnell, a steadfast Trump defender, nonetheless swatted away talk that the GOP-controlled Senate could dodge the matter of impeachment if the House approved charges against Trump.

"It's a Senate rule related to impeachment. It would take 67 votes to change, so I would have no choice but to take it up," McConnell said on CNBC. "How long you're on it is a whole different matter."

New attacks

Trump took to Twitter to defend anew his phone call with Zelenskiy as "perfect" and to unleash a series of attacks, most strikingly against House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff. The Democrat, he suggested, ought to be tried for a capital offense for launching into a paraphrase of Trump during a congressional hearing last week.

"Rep Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people," the president wrote. "It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?"

Trump tweeted repeatedly through the day but was, for the most part, a lonely voice as the White House lacked an organization or process to defend him. Senior staffers, including acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House counsel Pat Cipollone, were to present Trump this week with options on setting up the West Wing's response to impeachment, officials said.

Trump also raised eyebrows by retweeting comments made by a Baptist pastor, Robert Jeffress, to Fox News in which he warned of the dangers of "civil war" if the president was impeached.

"If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal," Trump paraphrased Jeffress as saying.

That tweet by the president drew condemnation from at least one Republican lawmaker, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

"I have visited nations ravaged by civil war," Kinzinger tweeted."@real-DonaldTrump I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant."

However, support across the country for impeachment has grown significantly from its level before the House launched its formal inquiry last week.

A new poll from Quinnipiac University shows 47 percent of registered voters say Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 47 percent say he should not. Just a week before, it was 37 percent for impeachment and 57 percent against. That was before the White House released its rough version of the call between Trump and Zelenskiy and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's announcement of a formal impeachment inquiry.

Agencies