'It's not over': Washington Post editorial board calls on Congress to redouble oversight of Trump

In the wake of Senate Republicans' near-unanimous move to bury the impeachment and acquit President Donald Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, the Washington Post editorial board published a blistering op-ed declaring that "it's not over" — and calling on Democrats to redouble their oversight on the president.

"Not only is Mr. Trump brazenly unrepentant for his attempt to extort Ukraine’s help for his reelection, but also he is likely to take the Senate’s vote as vindication and license for further improper actions," wrote the board. "That makes it incumbent upon responsible members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to do what they can to protect the integrity of the November election, as well as that of the Constitution."

"An initial step could be a resolution of censure by the Senate," wrote the board. "That wouldn’t remove Mr. Trump, but it would challenge Republicans who say they regard his actions as 'inappropriate' to vote accordingly. If they do, it might have a deterrent effect. If they don’t, voters will have cause to judge those senators up for reelection this year. A bipartisan censure motion would make it difficult for Mr. Trump to go on claiming he had done 'absolutely nothing wrong' and that the case against him was 'a hoax.'"

The board continued: "In the House, committees that pursued the investigation of Mr. Trump’s actions in Ukraine should continue to do so. There is much that remains unknown, including whether the president extracted favors in 2017 and 2018 from Ukraine’s previous government. There is also a public interest in the airing of evidence that the White House has illegitimately suppressed about the pressure campaign against the current president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The House should subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton, along with documents related to Mr. Trump’s withholding of military aid from Mr. Zelensky’s government. If court battles are needed to obtain this evidence, the House should fight them."

"Above all, legislators, the media and patriotic government officials must remain on guard against new attempts by Mr. Trump to subvert democracy," wrote the board. "The president has publicly called on China as well as Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, and has said he would accept dirt on an opponent if it were offered by a foreign government. There’s no reason to believe that Russia, Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian regimes favored by Mr. Trump won’t try to help his campaign, as Russia did in 2016."

"The lesson of the Ukraine affair must not be that there is no remedy for a president who would use his powers to undermine U.S. democracy," concluded the board.

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