A White House official’s July 25 email, sent soon after Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is just one more reason the Senate impeachment trial needs to include documents the White House has withheld from investigators, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a letter Monday to the entire Senate. The July 25 email from budget official Michael Duffey ordered the Pentagon not to send aid to Ukraine and to keep that order “closely held” because of its “sensitive nature.” The email was only just made public after a Freedom of Information Act request, and parts of it remain redacted—yet another reminder of how this White House has obstructed the congressional impeachment inquiry.
”The December 21 release of partially-redacted versions of these communications in response to the FOIA lawsuit further underscores why the Senate must review all of these records in unredacted form,” Schumer wrote.
That’s not all he wants. Schumer says the Senate must get access to documents relating to the pressure campaign to force Ukraine to announce investigations into Trump’s political opponents, the hold placed on the $400 million in aid to Ukraine, and the use of a White House meeting with Zelensky as bait to get him to do Trump’s bidding.
“Relevant documentary evidence currently in the possession of the Administration will augment the existing evidentiary record and will allow Senators to reach judgments informed by all of the available facts,” Schumer argued. “To oppose the admission of this evidence would be to turn a willfully blind eye to the facts, and would clearly be at odds with the obligation of Senators to 'do impartial justice' according to the oath we will all take in the impeachment trial.”
Of course, “turning a willfully blind eye to the facts” could practically be the Senate GOP’s motto.
Schumer had previously called for four witnesses to be called in the Senate trial: acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, former national security adviser John Bolton, White House aide Robert Blair, and Duffey. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is refusing thus far, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is aiding Schumer’s pressure campaign by holding on to the impeachment articles while the form of the Senate trial is negotiated.