Patrick Semansky / AP
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., readies to strike the gavel as she announces the passage of article II of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
- President Trump was acquitted by the US Senate of abusing his power and obstructing Congress at the climax of his impeachment trial Wednesday.
- But Democrats have said that they will continue probing Trump's pressure campaign in Ukraine, and could subpoena former Trump adviser John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas.
- Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that House lawmakers would "likely" subpoena Bolton.
- Since Trump's impeachment, damaging information from Parnas and Bolton has implicated him in withholding military aid to Ukraine for damaging information on domestic rivals.
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President Donald Trump's impeachment trial may have resulted in acquittal and the president claiming total exoneration, but Democrats say their investigation into the president's dealings in Ukraine is far from over.
Since Trump's impeachment in December new and damaging information about the president's bid to pressure Ukraine to probe domestic rival Joe Biden has come to light.
It includes evidence from Lev Parnas, a Florida businessman dispatched to Ukraine to drum up dirt on Biden, and the president's former national security adviser, John Bolton.
National Security Advisor John Bolton speaks during his a press-conference in Kiev, Ukraine, on 28 August 2019.
In the wake of the impeachment verdict, Democratic lawmakers spelt out some of the ways they could extract new information highly damaging to Trump as he seeks reelection.
During the impeachment trial Republicans refused to call Bolton as a witness, despite explosive new information emerging from his forthcoming book damaging one of the pillars of Trump's impeachment defense.
Bolton reportedly claims in the book that Trump made military aid to Ukraine conditional on it launching a Biden probe.
The White House is reportedly determined to keep the information out of the public domain, and is considering challenging the release of Bolton's book on national security grounds.
Screenshot via C-SPAN
Rep. Jerry Nadler
But Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that House lawmakers would "likely" subpoena John Bolton to obtain a full account of what went on behind the scenes.
"I think it's likely yes," he told CNN Wednesday.
Bolton himself has indicated his willingness to testify before Congress, despite not being called as an impeachment trial witness.
Since his indictment on election finance charges last October, Parnas has handed over troves of evidence to impeachment investigators, personally implicating Trump in the push for Biden dirt.
Rep. Eliot Engel, the House Foreign Affairs chairman, told the Associated Press the Ukraine story "is definitely not over." His committee was one of several that worked on the impeachment inquiry.
If compelled to testify under oath, Parnas and Bolton could provide damaging information, that could be used by Democrats in attack ads and on the 2020 campaign trail to portray the impeachment acquittal as a partisan cover-up.
But according to Axios, Republicans are also not yet done with the Ukraine controversy, and could use their control of the Senate to launch probes into Biden and his son, Hunter, whose job with a Ukrainian energy firm has been the focus of Republican attacks.
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