Schumer Remarks At NYC Press Conference Calling For Fair Senate Impeachment Trial; Schumer Says New NYT Reporting On President Trump’s Decision To Withhold Military Aid To Ukraine Makes Strongest Case Yet For Requested Witnesses And Documents

Last night the New York Times published a new story detailing the machinations that President Trump and his aides took to withhold military aid from Ukraine.

 

This new story shows all four witnesses that we Senate Democrats have requested— Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton, Michael Duffey, and Robert Blair—were intimately involved and had direct knowledge of President Trump’s decision to cut off aid in order to benefit himself.

 

Simply put: in our fight to have key documents and witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial, these new revelations are a game changer.

 

The new reporting shows that there were serious concerns raised by Trump administration officials about the propriety and legality of what the President was doing.

 

According to this story, there was even a dramatic, intervention-style meeting about this in the Oval Office, where President Trump’s most senior national security officials pleaded with him to release the military aid to Ukraine.

 

And when you combine these new revelations with the explosive emails from Michael Duffey released last week, it makes the strongest case yet for a Senate trial to include the witnesses and documents we have requested.

 

Let me be clear: this is about getting to the truth.

 

As Sergeant Joe Friday said in Dragnet, “Just the facts ma’am.” That’s all we want: the facts. We don’t know how these witnesses will testify. We don’t know what the documents, if we get them, our hands on them, will say. Maybe they’ll be exculpatory of President Trump or maybe they’ll be further condemning of President Trump’s actions. We don’t know, but we should see them regardless of what they say.

 

So far, neither Senator McConnell, nor any Republican Senator, has articulated a single good reason why the trial shouldn’t have these witnesses or these documents. President Trump hasn’t given a reason. McConnell and Trump do a lot of finger-pointing and name calling, but they never refute why these witnesses should not come, why these documents should not be there.

 

So I hope every Republican senator reads this story in today’s New York Times and explains why they would oppose our reasonable request for witnesses and documents in the Senate trial.

 

This story makes the choice even clearer: Will the Senate hold a fair trial, or will it enable a cover-up?

 

President Trump, if you are so confident you did nothing wrong: why won’t you let your men testify?

 

What are Senator McConnell and President Trump afraid of if all the facts come out?

 

Mr. President: release the emails and let your aides testify.