House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to threaten President Donald Trump on Thursday — and Trump simply laughed it off.
Pelosi told reporters that “nothing is off the table” in pushing the White House to comply with Democrats endless subpoenas for information, including fining administration officials through what’s called inherent contempt of Congress.
The White House had its own message: Pelosi’s demands are “a joke” and not worth the time it would take to even respond.
Pelosi said Thursday she hopes it doesn’t come to that. But she called the White House counsel’s letter to the Judiciary Committee resisting all requests for information “beneath the dignity of the president of the United States.”
The White House said it would not comply because the congressional inquiries have no “legislative” purpose.
The demands by Democrats are simply political stunts, critics say, and are just used to feed misinformation to the mainstream media.
Pelosi said House Democrats aim to “subpoena friendly.” If that doesn’t work, they’ll “subpoena otherwise.”
She noted that one of the constitutional purposes of congressional investigations is impeachment.
“It doesn’t mean you’re going on an impeachment path,” Pelosi said. “It means if you had the information, you might.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article