Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Monday on CNN that the four witnesses he wants for the Senate impeachment trial may say things that are “exculpatory” about President Donald Trump.
“These four witnesses have direct knowledge of the facts, particularly in regard to the delay in the aid to Ukraine. I don’t know what they’ll say. Maybe they’ll say something exculpatory about President Trump,” Schumer said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“But, for so many people who think that there are many Republicans who were saying, ‘Yeah, this looks pretty bad, but we need more evidence,’ this is the right evidence,” he continued.
“We want a trial to be fair, for the American people to think it should be fair, but not to be a cover-up, not to be something where there are witnesses who have direct knowledge as to what happened, do not testify. So, I am sending this letter to all of my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, in the hopes that we can come together on a fair trial.”
The New York Senator further claimed that he knew of unnamed Republicans who were “troubled by what the president did.”
“I’m not going to get into any names,” Schumer told CNN. “But, some of them have said we need to see more facts. No one has given a single–let me make two points here. Of the facts the house has presented, not one has been rebutted.”
“There have been a lot of wild goose chases, and conspiracy theories, that some of our Republican friends, not too many, have talked about, but not one of these facts has been rebutted, nor has there been a single good reason why these folks can’t testify.”
Schumer sent a letter to the Senate on Sunday night asking for former national security aide John Bolton and acting chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney to be witnesses, along with Mulvaney’s adviser Robert Blair, and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey.
An impeachment trial against Trump in the Senate is all but guaranteed after House Democrats voted to move forward with impeachment Friday. (RELATED: We Asked The 31 House Democrats From Trump Districts How They Would Vote On Impeachment — Not One Was Fully Committed)