WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Senate impeachment trial of President Trump ended in his acquittal one week ago, but for the first time since it began, Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman answered some questions from Spectrum Washington Bureau Reporter Taylor Popielarz.

In an interview on Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill, Portman and Popielarz spoke about impeachment for eight minutes. It was the first opportunity for Spectrum News to ask the senator some lingering questions, on-camera, about his approach to the third-ever Senate impeachment trial in U.S. history.

Portman voted to acquit Trump, and earlier in the trial, he voted against hearing from witnesses or admitting new evidence.

The president had been impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, stemming from his attempt to withhold congressionally-approved military aid from Ukraine in order to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

The video above is the full eight-minute exchange, unedited.

Below is a full transcript of the conversation that includes notes throughout to provide some context.

— Start of conversation about impeachment —

Taylor: “I want to ask about impeachment real quick just cause I didn’t get a chance to talk with you during the trial. There were emails that were made public by a nonprofit during the trial that showed your national security advisor, Wayne Jones, had emailed Michael Duffey at [the United States Office of Management and Budget] OMB last August asking about the hold on the [Ukraine security assistance] aid and the reason. Did you get a direct response from Duffey to that inquiry?”

***Note: You can read Jones’ email by clicking here and scrolling to page 82/193:

Portman: “I don’t think we ever did, we never did. So that was August. We made that inquiry because we were hearing from defense contractors in Ohio saying, ‘You know, we’re supposed to be providing some of this funding and yet we’re not getting the funding from the Department of Defense to do that, to help Ukraine.’ Then in September, on September 11 [2019], the date that the decision was made to release the funding, I actually called the president and asked him to release the funding, explained why I thought it was so important that Ukraine get that money and get it now. That was the day that he actually released it —he indicated in the call that he would now release the funding, so I was pleased to see the money go before September 30, which was the drop-dead date if it hadn’t gone by then. And look, I’m a big fan of what Ukraine has been trying to do since 2014. You know, they basically threw off the shackles. They said, ‘We’re not going to have this corrupt, Russian-backed government anymore. We’re going to turn to the West, to the [European Union], to the United States, to democracy and freedom and free enterprise.’ So that’s what this is all about, ultimately, is America standing by Ukraine and ensuring that they have the ability to defend themselves.”

***Note: Portman is the cofounder and co-chair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus. He most recently visited Ukraine in May 2019 to meet with the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who became a key figure in the impeachment investigation.

Taylor: “[Senate] Democrats had wanted — they named Michael Duffey specifically as one of their early, first three or four people they would want to hear from for subpoenas. You obviously voted against hearing from witnesses. If you didn’t get a direct response from him, why not say, ‘Yeah, let’s bring him in so I can get that answer’?”

Portman: “Yeah, well there’s a process you go through. The House chose not to do that. The administration has the ability to say, ‘Well this is executive privilege’ — in other words, this conversation, you know, particularly when you’ve got a high-ranking White House official, is off limits, and that’s what every administration in modern time has used. So it’s not the Trump administration, it’s what they — you know, the Obama administration used it, before that the Bush administration used it, before that the Clinton administration used it. The House chose not to go through that process, and that was one of my frustrations, as you know, that I expressed was — you know, I don’t think that witnesses that they wanted to bring to the Senate, they even tried to get in the House. They didn’t even subpoena Michael Duffey, as an example. They didn’t even try. And yet, to me, I thought that some of the actions were inappropriate, but not rising to the level of removing a duly elected president from office and taking him off the ballot. We just had the New Hampshire primary last night, he could not have been on the ballot had we voted the other way.”

***Note: House Democrats had subpoenaed Duffey back in October 2019, but the White House ordered him to ignore it. House Democrats then chose to not take the matter to court, fearing it would drag out their impeachment case into the New Year.

Taylor: “And when it comes with this aid hold, I just, I have a lot of questions for you about it because of your position on the Ukraine Caucus, you traveled there last May. You told Fox News in an interview last September that when you spoke with the president on September 11, he ‘only raised one issue…and that was about Europeans not doing enough.’ You said he ‘never linked the aid to corruption in general or certainly not an investigation in particular.’ But after that, the White House, their legal team, the president’s allies like Congressman Jim Jordan from Ohio, listed a bunch of reasons ranging from wanting to root out corruption, ranging from wanting Zelensky to prove himself legitimate. So do you think the president was not being truthful with you on that call about the reason he withheld the aid?”

***Note: Here is the link to Portman’s September 26, 2019 interview with Fox News.

Portman: “Well, he didn’t do a laundry list of reasons. My point was that in my call with him, he only raised one issue and that was that —“

Taylor: “Do you think he was being honest, though, with that one issue? Because his legal team kind of contradicted it moving forward.”

Portman: “Well, yeah I think he was being very honest in terms of his view about aid. I mean, it’s consistent with what he views about whether it’s aid to NATO or aid to the Koreans — the South Koreans — I mean he consistently says other countries need to do more. That’s what he chose to raise with me, that was my only point, is that’s the only issue that he raised. Of course, you know, we learned later in the impeachment process and in the trial there were other reasons out there that [former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union] Gordon Sondland and others talked about. But my point was, in my call to him, that was our only discussion. And it was a debate. And I said, ‘Look, I don’t disagree with you that the Europeans should do more.’ They’ve done zero in terms of lethal military assistance, which is what the Ukrainians really wanted after 2014. But, that you shouldn’t take it out on Zelensky because he was the new president coming in, he was trying to get on his feet, he needed our help. We had committed in Congress to provide that help, and therefore the president said, ‘Ok, I agree. I’m going to release it.’ And he did release it. And it was good that he released it. And it did go out before September 30, which was the key date. Congress had to pass additional legislation, which is not something that we always do but have done on occasion, where we said, ‘Ok, let’s be sure this money can also be spent in the next fiscal year because it takes a while to obligate the money.’ And that was good too and I supported that. So at the end of the day, based on talking with Ukrainians and the analysis that we’ve done, in terms of the military side, they got the assistance that they needed, they got it in a timely way, and there were no investigations, so that’s good. Because, as you know, I had concerns about that —“

Taylor: “Yeah.”

Portman: "— withholding the aid for that reason. But my only point was in my conversation with him, that was the only issue that he raised. I’m not suggesting he didn’t raise other issues with other people or have other concerns.”

Taylor: “Wouldn’t that warrant, then, bringing in witnesses or new evidence just to learn about —“

Portman: “Well I don’t disbelieve what we were able to hear during the — I mean, I, there were 17 witnesses. I listened to 190-some video clips of witnesses. I listened to 65 hours of discussion on this, including the majority of that time was from the House [impeachment] managers. And so, we heard it. And my point was, even if you stipulate everything was true that they were saying, they never alleged a crime, they never met the standard, I believe, the Constitution sets forth. Go back and read the Federalist Papers and see how they meant this to be high crimes. They listed two crimes: bribery and treason. And said high crimes like those two are the kinds of things that we’re talking about here. So I did not believe that that was grounds to say let’s remove a president from office and to take him off the ballot. Particularly given that, all through the Constitution, the fundamental right, of course, is with us as citizens, with voters. That was the big difference between us and other countries in the world, at that time, was to say the ultimate check and balance on the administration, on Congress for that matter, was the voters being able to step up and decide. And here we are in the middle of a reelection, and it seems to me that the burden is awfully high on somebody that says we’re not going to allow the voters to make this decision with all the information, and the information is out there.”

Taylor: “And then one more quick question on this, and then I’d love to sneak in a question about trade. You told NBC4 in Columbus just last week, that you said I ‘think [Trump] is listening. I really do’ and you ‘don’t think new witnesses would have added much light,’ as you just alluded to. You mentioned Ambassador Sondland, he was removed last week. [Former White House national security aide Lt. Colonel [Alexander] Vindman was dismissed; his twin brother, who wasn’t involved in any of this, was also dismissed. Do you think the president is listening just based on those actions?”

***Note: Here is the link to Portman speaking with NBC4 in Columbus last week.

Portman: “Well, in terms of those actions, you serve a president and he has the choice as to who he wants to have in his administration —"

Taylor: “But do you think he would’ve even dismissed —“

Portman: "— and having served in a couple of administrations, that’s the president’s prerogative. And particularly you don’t want people in sensitive positions who you don’t trust, and he obviously had a concern about the level of trust. So I thought it was entirely up to the administration to do that. I frankly was surprised that some of those individuals stayed as long as they did, given the fact that there must have been a lack of trust there.”

— End of conversation about impeachment —