Democrats say White House improperly classifying piece of impeachment evidence

Senate Democrats said a letter from a national security aide to Vice President Mike Pence that was admitted as evidence in the impeachment trial late Wednesday should be made public before the proceedings against President Donald Trump end.

“It highly corroborates the case that Chairman Schiff has been making and exhibits no apparent reason that it should be classified,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Thursday. “I’d like to have somebody under oath from the administration [on] how it was made classified and what they say is classified, because I don’t think it’s defensible.”

House Democrats sought Pence’s approval to declassify the letter from Pence aide Jennifer Williams last month, claiming it was important evidence in their investigation of allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rivals. The information, submitted as supplemental testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, relates to Pence’s Sept. 18 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Williams testified to House investigators twice, telling them that Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky was “inappropriate” and “political.” But after her public testimony in November, she delivered a letter to House impeachment investigators indicating she recalled new details about Pence’s Sept. 18 call with Zelensky that were relevant to the case.

Schiff asked the vice president to declassify it, claiming there was no “legitimate basis” to keep it secret. He said the decision to classify the information “cannot be justified on national security or any other legitimate grounds we can discern.”

Senate Democrats echoed that claim on Thursday. “I have no idea why they wanted to classify it,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), emerging from the Senate’s secure facility where the letter has been made available to lawmakers.

“There is nothing I can see in that document that justifies its being classified,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), too, said the information should be declassified.

Asked about the letter, Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, who is also serving as one of his trial defenders, said he wouldn’t comment on “national security” matters.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, indicated late Wednesday “a single, one-page classified document identified by the House managers” had been entered into evidence under the Senate’s standing rules. He noted it would “not be made part of the public record.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), one of the House impeachment managers, mentioned Williams’ supplemental testimony during her presentation to senators on Wednesday. She argued that the only reason for it to remain classified is to “cover up” the evidence.

It’s unclear how significant the new evidence is to the overall case Democrats have been presenting. Democrats have primarily called it “corroborative” but would not divulge its contents. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) downplayed its significance, saying it was “just corrections” to Williams’ previous testimony.

“That’s it,” he said.

Senators rotated in and out of the secure room for much of Thursday morning, spending several minutes reviewing the contents of Williams’ supplemental testimony. More than two dozen Democrats were spotted entering the facility, including Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Patty Murray of Washington state, the No. 2 and 3 Senate Democrats, respective.

Three Republican senators were spotted walking into the secure facility before the impeachment trial resumed on Thursday: Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia.

When Johnson was asked if the letter was significant, he shook his head. But on whether the information should be declassified, he said: “I will make a blanket statement that we classify way too much information.”

Republicans, including Johnson, have complained they had not heard anything “new” in Democrats’ presentation of the evidence in the impeachment trial — evidence they gathered and revealed publicly over the course of a three-month investigation late last year. But Williams’ letter is one piece of information that has been kept from public view because of the classification designation.

In December, Pence’s office defended the decision to keep the letter classified, saying Democrats’ demand to release it “serves no purpose.”

“At this point, the Intelligence Committee’s oversight authority is limited to those areas in which it may potentially legislate or appropriate,” Pence’s counsel Matthew Morgan wrote to Schiff on Dec. 11, noting that Schiff’s panel had already filed its impeachment report at the time of his request. “Your request, coming after the completion of your report, serves no legitimate legislative or impeachment inquiry purpose.”

Morgan also jabbed at Williams for discussing the call with lawmakers at all. “The contents of a classified call with a foreign head of state should never have been discussed in an unclassified committee hearing or an unclassified deposition,” he said in his response to Schiff.