Democrats renew calls for witnesses
Emails shed light on Ukraine issue at centre of impeachment effort
Top Democrats on Sunday renewed their demands for witnesses to testify at President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, citing newly released emails showing that the White House asked officials to keep quiet over the suspension of military aid to Ukraine just 90 minutes after Trump leaned on that country’s president to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden.
The emails, released late Friday by the Trump administration to the Center for Public Integrity, shed new light on Trump’s effort to solicit Ukraine to help him win reelection in 2020, the matter at the heart of the House’s vote on Wednesday to impeach him for “high crimes and misdemeanours.”
With the Senate’s Democratic and Republican leaders at odds over the trial’s format, Democrats seized on the emails in an effort to put pressure on Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader. McConnell, who wants a barebones proceeding, has rejected a proposal by his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, to have four top White House officials testify.
One of those officials is Michael Duffey, a senior budget official who told the Pentagon to keep quiet about the aid freeze because of the “sensitive nature of the request,” according to an email sent on July 25.
An hour and a half earlier that day, Trump asked President Volodymy r Zelenski y of Ukraine to “do us a favour, though” and investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
“What is a trial with no witnesses and no documents?” Schumer said Sunday during a news conference in New York City. “It’s a sham trial.” With lawmakers home in their districts for a two-week holiday recess and McConnell and Schumer unable to come to terms, the proceedings are in limbo.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will not send the Senate the articles of impeachment, necessary to bring about a trial, until she receives assurances from McConnell that the proceedings will be fair.
At least one academic, Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor who testified as an expert for Democrats during the impeachment inquiry, has argued that Trump will not be impeached until the articles are transmitted.