Senate Blocks Schumer Amendment to Subpoena Additional Impeachment Documents

The Senate tabled Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) amendment that would subpoena additional documents before the House impeachment managers begin their open statement.

The Senate rejected Schumer Amendment 1284 to S. Res. 483, which would subpoena a wide variety of documents from the White House. The Senate voted to table the amendment on partisan lines, with 53 votes in favor of the tabling the amendment and 47 votes against tabling the measure.

The amendment requests records, communications, notes, phone conversations, records of meetings from the White House and the National Security Council, as well as a number of individuals that played a role in the United States’ conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensksy.

Sen. Schumer also offered an amendment that would allow the Senate to subpoena additional documents and records relating to the Department of State, which is expected to fail as well.

Schumer has criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) resolution, S. Res. 483, that would allow for a vote on allowing additional witnesses and documents only after the House Democrat impeachment managers and President Trump’s legal team deliver their opening statements.

Schumer described the McConnell resolution as a “national disgrace” and that it is “clear Senator McConnell is hell-bent on making it much more difficult to get witnesses and documents and intent on rushing the trial through.”

“Senator McConnell is saying he doesn’t want to hear any of the existing evidence, and he doesn’t want to hear any new evidence. A trial where no evidence – no existing record, no witnesses, no documents – isn’t a trial at all — It’s a cover-up,” the New York Democrat said.