Lead impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff said on Thursday there can be no vindication for President Trump in his Senate impeachment trial if more witnesses, such as former National Security Advisor John Bolton, are not called to testified.
Schiff said the Senate must allow for more witnesses to testify since the "Constitution requires a fair trial."
"And the fact that they must resort to this level of desperation is the result of the fact that the House managers proved the defendant scheme involved withholding military aid, withholding of a coveted White House meeting with a president of Ukraine in order to coerce, to extort, to blackmail that country into conducting or announcing the sham investigations, to helping him cheat in the election," Schiff said.
"It is the normalization of lawlessness, but that is what it had to resort to as the evidence has continued to pile up of the president’s guilt," he said, adding, "We will continue today to make the case, a case that has already been made to the American people but needs to be made to the Senate, and that is a fair trial requires witnesses, fair trial, and impartial oath requires witnesses. And that’s what they should deliver for the American people. No trial, no vindication. No vindication for the president or anyone else. The Constitution requires a fair trial, and that’s all we are asking."
Democrats are calling for Bolton's testimony after the New York Times reported his unpublished book alleges Trump definitively tied the Ukraine military aid to the country's officials helping investigate the former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, because he was on the board of gas company Burisma.
