últimas notícias

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused his Republican colleagues who voted to reject a motion for additional witnesses and documents in President Trump’s impeachment trial of being involved in a “cover-up.”

The New York Democrat lashed out on Saturday after the Trump administration acknowledged it is blocking the release of two dozen emails related to Trump’s involvement in the delay of military aid for Ukraine.

“Every single Republican senator voted to endorse the White House cover-up of these potentially important truth-revealing emails. Make no mistake, the full truth will eventually come out, and Republicans will have to answer for why they were so determined to enable the president to hide it,” Schumer said in a statement.

In a court filing late Friday, the Justice Department responded to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking those records hours after the Senate witness vote. Heather Walsh, a lawyer for the Office of Management and Budget, wrote to the U.S. District Court for D.C. that these 24 emails sent between June and September 2019 cannot be unredacted because they are covered by presidential privilege.

“Specifically, the documents in this category are emails that reflect communications by either the President, the Vice President, or the President’s immediate advisors regarding Presidential decision-making about the scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to Ukraine,” Walsh said.

Impeachment proceedings began last fall with Democrats accusing Trump of improperly leveraging a White House meeting and nearly $400 million in security aid to pressure Ukraine into helping investigate his political rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden, who is running for president this year.

Trump was charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — the latter a result of the Trump administration withholding some witnesses and documents during the House impeachment investigation.

In the Senate trial, as impeachment managers pressed for additional evidence, particularly testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton, Trump’s legal team argued that the Democrats could not prove a motive and the president may have had “mixed motives” for his actions, involving both personal and public interest.

Two Senate Republicans joined 47 Democrats on Friday to vote in favor of calling for the additional evidence. The motion fell short by two votes, ending the case House impeachment managers have been presenting for the past two weeks and paving the way for an acquittal of the charges next week.

The Justice Department filed its motion Friday just before the midnight deadline, asking the court to deny the Center for Public Integrity’s request for unredacted copies of records of communications between the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Management and Budget about the security aid. A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to release the documents in batches in December. They were heavily blacked out, but some groups and journalists say they have viewed the unredacted copies.