Opinion by Elie Honig
Updated 11:34 PM ET, Wed December 25, 2019
(CNN)During the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of President Donald Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine into announcing an investigation of the Bidens, the committee issued 71 subpoenas and requests for information. The Trump administration, in response, produced nothing — not a single piece of paper.
So, it’s only fair to ask: What are they hiding?
We just got our first small hint, and the answer is alarming. A federal judge ordered the administration to turn over documents subject to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Center for Public Integrity. And just one of those documents — an e-mail from Michael Duffey, a Trump appointee who served in the Office of Management and Budget, to other OMB and Pentagon officials — gives us a tantalizing look at the administration’s efforts to withhold foreign aid to Ukraine, and to cover up its own conduct.
Duffey — one of four witnesses requested by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in Trump’s upcoming Senate impeachment trial — sent the e-mail roughly 90 minutes after Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Duffey e-mail is a prosecutor’s dream, opening up various lines of potentially fruitful questioning.
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Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/23/opinions/trump-adminstration-hiding-impeachment-information-honig/index.html