Резюме: | The impeachment of President Donald Trump is over, but it’s far from case closed on Ukraine. A full accounting of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, stemming in large part from the foreign policy entanglements pursued by personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, remains unfinished despite Trump’s acquittal Wednesday in the Senate. As the president launches into his reelection campaign, pushing past the charges that threatened his legacy, it’s only a matter of time before fresh details, documents and eyewitnesses emerge, including revelations in a new book from John Bolton, the former national security adviser. The result could be the start of a prolonged investigation with no clear endpoint, keeping questions about the president’s conduct alive through the election in November. It’s the kind of prolonged fallout that Trump and his GOP allies sought to avoid as they rejected a lengthy impeachment trial. “More is going to come out every day, indeed it has come out every day and every week,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. Schiff, the House’s lead impeachment manager, said that no final decisions have been made on whether to subpoena Bolton in the House after the Senate voted not to hear his testimony. “The president’s basic lack of character, his willingness to cheat in the election — he’s not going to stop,” Schiff said. “It’s not going to change, which means that we are going to have to remain eternally vigilant.” Bolton, who was in the room as Trump made key decisions, will be telling his story soon, possibly in testimony, if House leaders decide to subpoena him, or in a book that is scheduled for release in March. And it’s not just Bolton. Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, a Florida businessman who claims to have been working for Trump on Ukraine, has said he is eager to testify before Congress and tell his side of the story. Indicted on campaign finance charges last year, he has been providing documents and messages to impeachment investigators. Meanwhile, thousands of pages of Ukraine-related documents are slowly emerging in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed by watchdog groups. The Justice Department disclosed in a court filing last weekend that it has 24 emails related to Ukraine that it has not produced. Rep. Eliot Engel, the House Foreign Affairs chairman, said the Ukraine story “is definitely not over.” His committee was one of several that worked on the impeachment inquiry. “I can tell you we’re not going to let the issue drop,” Engel said. “I think there are a lot of unanswered questions that the American public deserves to know.” Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, a member of the intelligence panel, said the House will need to be “more vigorous than ever for abuses of power” as Trump is likely to be emboldened by his acquittal. “Even if the president continues his obstruction, the facts will come out,” he said. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged in the minutes after the vote that “the investigations will go on,” adding “that’s sort of what Congress does.” But Republicans said it’s time for Congress to move on. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one of Trump’s fiercest GOP defenders, said the “the cloud over the presidency has been removed.” […]
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