US Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced the Senate’s acquittal of President Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying he remains “an ongoing threat to American democracy.”
Pelosi said in a statement that was issued after the Senate acquitted Trump of both impeachment articles passed by the House, “Today, the President and Senate Republicans have normalized lawlessness and rejected the system of checks and balances of our Constitution,”
“The President remains an ongoing threat to American democracy, with his insistence that he is above the law and that he can corrupt the elections if he wants to”, the House Speaker further added.
The Republican-majority Senate voted 52-48 to acquit Trump of abuse of power and 53-47 to acquit him of obstruction of Congress.
Earlier this month, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) “has redacted portions of 24 documents pursuant to the Presidential Communications Privilege,” OMB’s deputy general counsel Heather Walsh said in a court filing, cited by US media.
The 100 members of the Senate have been sitting silently for six days listening to impassioned arguments for and against Trump’s removal from office for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Democrats have been pressing for the Senate to subpoena Bolton, who was fired by Trump in September, after reports that his upcoming White House tell-all book corroborates the abuse-of-power impeachment charge against the president over his dealings with Ukraine.
Ukraine’s former president had said that he discussed investments with President Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in 2017, but that he never discussed Ukrainian companies with any US official.
Democrats said he conditioned the aid on Ukraine’s announcing investigations, including into his potential 2020 election challenger Joe Biden.
On December 18, President Trump was formally impeached in a historic vote in the House of Representatives.
In September, the impeachment inquiry, which Nancy Pelosi initiated over a complaint by an anonymous whistleblower, is looking into White House’s alleged efforts to withhold military aid to have Ukraine investigate a Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden.
Democrats are hoping their arguments will at least persuade some Republicans, who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, to support their call to issue subpoenas next week for four top current and former Trump aides to testify, and for internal White House records about the Ukraine affair.
(With inputs from agency)