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Schumer Letter to All Senators Outlining Specific Documents for the Senate to Subpoena Whistleblower Complaint on Ukraine (Kelly Smith, comp.) [1] (12/23/2019)

handle is hein.presidents/usgvtwht0267 and id is 1 raw text is: CHARLES E. SCHUMER DEMOCRAiC LEADER nilittld *tats * are WASHINGTON, DC 20510 December 23, 2019 Dear Colleague: As the Senate prepares for the impeachment trial of President Trump. there has been a great deal of discussion regarding the need for the testimony of witnesses. I believe it is essential that the Senate hear from certain witnesses in order to conduct a Full. fair and speedy trial in this case, and I made this clear to Leader McConnell both in my written proposal of December 15t and when we met in person on December 19'. I am writing today to ask all Senators to consider another, equally important aspect of the trial that has thus far received less attention: the need for the Senate to review documentary evidence. In my December 15' letter, I proposed that the Senate subpoena both a short list of four witnesses and a limited set of relevant documents from the Administration. These documents fall into three evidentiary categories: (1) the effort to induce and pressure Ukraine to announce certain political investigations; (2) the withholding of a White House meeting desperately sought by the newly-elected President of Ukraine; and (3) the order to hold, and later release, $391 million in military assistance to Ukraine. The House of Representatives amassed a tremendous amount of evidence in support of the Articles of Impeachment, including extensive testimony, given in public and under oath, by senior Administration officials appointed by President Trump. However, the House was unable to gain access to a body of additional relevant evidence because of President Trump's unprecedented, Administration-wide directive to defy all subpoenas issued by the House, notwithstanding the fact that the House issued those subpoenas lawfully and pursuant to its constitutional impeachment power. As a result of this directive, the White House, Department of State, Office of Management and Budget and other agencies refused to produce a single document in response to the House's duly-issued subpoenas. This directive not only deprived the House of relevant evidence, it will also prevent the Senate from seeing the available evidence unless the Senate takes action to obtain it. By way of comparison, in the impeachment trial of President Clinton, the Senate had the benefit of thousands of pages of documents from the Department of Justice investigation by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. There simply is no good reason why evidence that is directly relevant to the conduct at issue in the Articles of Impeachment should be withheld from the Senate and the American people. 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. 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. The following examples illustrate why it is so important that the Senate obtain these materials for consideration in the upcoming trial.

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