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WASHINGTON, Oct. 8-- The White House said Tuesday that it won't cooperate with the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump led by House Democrats. "You have designed and implemented your inquiry in a manner that violates fundamental fairness and constitutionally mandated due process," White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced the initiation of the impeachment proceedings on Sept. 24. The letter was also forwarded to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel. They have been leading the now fast-moving impeachment inquiry. Claiming that the impeachment investigation "violates the Constitution, the rule of law, and every past precedent," Cipollone told the Democratic leaders, "Put simply, you seek to overturn the results of the 2016 election and deprive the American people of the President they have freely chosen." "President Trump and his Administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances," the counsel said. The Democrats' effort to remove the president stemmed from a whistleblower complaint filed on Aug. 12 alleging that the president pressured his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, during a July 25 phone call to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as well as issues related to alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. | 
