‘We’re Not Fooling Around’: House Democrats Vow to Subpoena White House

At a second appearance with the visiting President Sauli Niinisto of Finland not much later, Mr. Trump became increasingly angry while responding to questions about the impeachment investigation, complaining that it was part of a “hoax” that has been perpetrated against him since he took office, and threatening vaguely to bring “a major lawsuit” to retaliate. He went after Mr. Schiff anew, and blasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, charging that she “hands out subpoenas like they’re cookies.”

The president was so agitated as he was pelted with questions about his actions and the impeachment inquiry that he repeatedly ordered reporters to ask Mr. Niinisto questions instead. At the end, Mr. Trump turned his back on the Finnish president and stalked off the stage in the East Room without offering his guest the customary handshake.

The clash between the president and congressional Democrats came on another momentous day in Washington where, in just over two weeks, revelations about attempts by Mr. Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to pressure Ukraine to investigate Mr. Biden and other Democrats have exploded into an impeachment inquiry that threatens his presidency.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mr. Schiff warned the Trump administration that any attempt to stonewall the House’s request or intimidate witnesses would be construed as obstruction worthy of impeachment itself.

“We’re not fooling around here,” Mr. Schiff said. “We don’t want this to drag on months and months and months, which would be the administration’s strategy. So they just need to know even as they try to undermine our ability to find the facts around the president’s effort to coerce a foreign leader to create dirt that he can use against a political opponent, that they will be strengthening the case on obstruction.”

After asserting that Congress would not let impeachment entirely eclipse its legislative agenda, Ms. Pelosi accused the president of an “assault on the Constitution.”

Mr. Trump, watching on television from the White House, responded in real time on Twitter: “The Do Nothing Democrats should be focused on building up our Country, not wasting everyone’s time and energy on BULLSHIT, which is what they have been doing ever since I got overwhelmingly elected in 2016, 223-306.”