Biden Elaborates on Vow to Ignore Senate Subpoena

A day after reaffirming that position, Biden tried twice Saturday to clarify his remarks, insisting that there would not be “any legal basis” for such a subpoena but leaving it unclear if he would ultimately comply with one.

“I would honor whatever the Congress in fact legitimately asked me to do,” Biden told reporters after a town-hall-style event in Tipton.

Asked if he would challenge a subpoena in court, he responded: “The answer is, I don’t think that’s going to happen to begin with. Let’s cross that bridge when it comes.” He added that he would abide by “whatever was legally required of me.”

From a series of tweets Saturday morning to the remarks to reporters early in the afternoon, Biden mounted a sometimes confusing attempt to address a hypothetical situation that he criticized himself for drawing attention to in the first place, despite his own pleas to the news media to focus on Trump and his behavior in office.

He did so as he campaigned in Iowa on a two-day swing, joining several other candidates on a rainy day as they resumed making their cases to voters just over five weeks before the nominating caucuses in the state.

On Saturday morning, Biden wrote on Twitter that he wanted to “clarify” comments he had made Friday, when he met with the editorial board of The Des Moines Register, whose endorsement in the Iowa caucuses is highly sought after by presidential candidates.

Biden was asked by The Register whether he stood by previous comments that he would not comply with a subpoena to testify in the impeachment trial. He said he did and explained that complying with a subpoena and testifying would effectively allow Trump to shift attention onto Biden and away from the president’s own conduct. Biden made similar comments to reporters aboard his campaign bus Friday night.

On Saturday morning, Biden elaborated on Twitter: “I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial. That is the point I was making yesterday and I reiterate: this impeachment is about Trump’s conduct, not mine.”

He also wrote that over the course of his decadeslong political career, he had “always complied with a lawful order” and that in his two terms as vice president, his office had “cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests.”

Speaking to reporters in Tipton, Biden said he had “no firsthand knowledge” about the accusations against Trump, so there was “no basis” for calling him as a witness.

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The House impeached Trump this month over his campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden. In the aftermath of Trump’s impeachment, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and the minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, have been at odds over proceedings for a trial, in part because of Schumer’s request to call Trump administration officials for testimony.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California had said she would not formally send the articles of impeachment to the upper chamber until she had assurances that the trial would be conducted fairly.

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As he spoke to reporters in Tipton, Biden seemed to fault himself for entertaining the hypothetical of whether he would comply with a subpoena — and creating a story line in the news media that continued Saturday. Biden observed that “this is going to be the news today” and added, “I’m criticizing myself.”

“I shouldn’t even have answered the question,” he said. “Because in answering the question, now there’s going to be another round. We’re not talking about: What did Trump do?”

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Traveling around Iowa in his “No Malarkey” campaign bus, Biden held three town-hall-style events Saturday, fielding questions from the audience at each one. At an event in Washington, Iowa, one attendee asked Biden if he would nominate former President Barack Obama to the Supreme Court.

“If he’d take it, yes,” Biden responded.

The campaigning resumed after Christmas, even if many Iowans were more focused on college football than politics.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, spent Saturday afternoon meeting voters in the Des Moines area and fielding questions that, at times, homed in on two of his biggest vulnerabilities as a candidate — doubts about whether his high-minded words about fixing the nation’s problems can produce tangible results, and his ability to attract more African American support.

In a middle school gymnasium in Marshalltown, about an hour northeast of Des Moines, one man told Buttigieg that he needed more than just “vision statements and goals.” The mayor responded by noting there was a reason “I’m being a little careful on what I promise,” which he then followed up with a thinly veiled critique of plans by opponents like Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont to offer free college tuition and “Medicare for all” health care plans.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “We’re offering big, bold, ambitious ideas.” But candidates, he added, can have ideas that are both “big and practical.”

Later, at a meeting in Des Moines that included several people affiliated with the NAACP, a young black man pointedly asked Buttigieg, “How can we trust you to be a champion on racial justice?” After the mayor walked the young man through what he said was some “misinformation” about his record with African Americans, the questioner still was not satisfied and pressed him. Why should you be president, he asked, “if you didn’t do a good job in South Bend?”

“Most people in South Bend believe I did a good job,” Buttigieg responded — including people of color, he added. “And I would invite you to check the data on that.”

Warren also returned to Iowa after a holiday break, with two events in the Des Moines area that focused on her core message of economic inequality and structural changes. In Urbandale, Warren pitched herself as a pragmatic progressive who could work across the aisle, citing a hearing aid bill that was signed into law by Trump in 2017.

“This is about making markets work,” she said, separating herself from Sanders — who calls himself a democratic socialist and is more openly critical of capitalist markets.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .