A summons has been issued to acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney instructing him to appear before the House impeachment inquiry to provide his deposition on Friday. However, it is very unlikely that Mulvaney will appear, even if that voluntary summons is given an update to a congressional subpoena.
As the closed-door depositions phase of the House impeachment inquiry wind down, a number of summons and subpoenas are being issued to potential witnesses who are almost certain to be no-shows, but whose testimony is likely to be sought again when the public hearings begin in the next few weeks. And even if the summoned witness never makes an appearance, their absence also makes a contribution—if only in showing that the Trump White House is refusing to cooperate and is in contempt of Congress.
This is likely just the first of several attempts to secure Mulvaney’s testimony due to his central role in the Ukraine scandal. As chief of staff, Mulvaney assembled Ambassador Kurt Volker, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry into the “three amigos” charged with subverting U.S. policy in Ukraine by connecting with Rudy Giuliani and extorting “investigations” into a pair of already disproven conspiracy theories. Also, in his role as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mulvaney was directly aware of Trump’s order to withhold military assistance to Ukraine and passed that information along to both his staff and the Pentagon.