The Senate Just Voted Against Allowing Witnesses For The Impeachment Trial

Immediately following the Senate voted against calling new witnesses and documents in the impeachment trial on Friday (January 31), the chamber will soon move to vote on whether to convict President Donald Trump on two counts: abuse of power, and obstruction of Congress. This week was a wild one, and there’s plenty to catch up on.


To catch you up:


Six months back, President Donald Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and asked him to investigate potential 2016 election interference based on a conspiracy theory and to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter. Trump also allegedly contained up $400 million in pre-approved military aid as a reward that dirty work. A whistleblower complaint about the call led to private and public Congressional hearings featuring each person from Ambassador Bill Taylor, the best diplomat in Ukraine, to Fiona Hill, Trump’s senior Russia advisor. The following weeks in Washington, D.C. Were filled with dogs, drag queens, Kim Kardashian and A$AP Rocky name-drops, weird turkey pardons, deadline promises made not kept, and also a House Judiciary Committee vote. In late December, the Residence of Representatives officially impeached Trump. Then, soon after weeks of Speaker of the Home Nancy Pelosi hold off on sending the articles of impeachment over to the Senate, the impeachment finally moved from the Home to the Senate, and the trial began.


So what happened this week?


Saturday, January 25 and Sunday, January 26


We don’t normally talk about the weekend, although this one was a little bit more involved than most: The White Residence started its defense of Trump on Saturday (January 25). Per the Senate’s rules, the defense was able to spend  24 hours over the course of three days — Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday — to prepare Trump’s case, yet White Residence counsels didn’t use all their accessible time. As a substitute, they wrapped soon after just two hours and mentioned they’d continue on Monday afternoon, per the New York Times. As CNN reported, Trump’s defense lawyers spent their short time arguing that Democrats are pushing for impeachment on purely political grounds and that they’re afraid they can’t win the 2020 election without Trump out of office. (The polls pitting Democratic primary candidates against Trump are pretty mixed, so there’s no definitive way to mention if this claim is in any way based in fact.)  Yet lawyers also claimed there weren’t any direct witnesses to any wrongdoing — a point that must have infuriated Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has spent the past month attempting to convince Senate Republicans to let more witnesses speak. Additionally to Trump and Zelensky, there were at least seven known participants on the phone call.


“So the President’s counsel is criticizing the case against the President for lack of sources close to the President while at the same time blocking testimony from witnesses close to the President,” Schumer said. “It makes no sense.”


On Sunday (January 26), the New York Times released a bombshell report from former security advisor John Bolton’s forthcoming book that alleges first-hand knowledge of Trump bribing Ukraine for personalized and political increase. This is critical because it undercuts Trump’s argument that the holdup in aid was separate from the request to investigate the Bidens. Democrats saw this as a potential possibility to convince Republicans to permit Bolton to testify.


Monday, January 27


In a continuation of Saturday’s arguments, Trump’s lawyers took to the Senate floor to argue on behalf of his acquittal — however the Bolton news from Sunday (January 26) threw a little bit of a wrench in that plan. In public, Trump lawyers barely acknowledged the New York Times report. Nevertheless beyond the scenes, things were getting messy: Democrats were attempting to sway Republicans to vote to permit more witnesses and Trump tweeted that Bolton was only saying it was quid pro quo because he was attempting to sell books.


all of the while, the Times reported new revelations on Monday, including that Bolton told Attorney General William Barr that he was worried Trump was doing personalized favors for “autocratic leaders.”


Tuesday, January 28


Trump’s lawyers had another quick day on Tuesday, concluding their starting arguments in far less than 90 minutes. White Residence counsel Pat Cipollone asked senators to vote for an acquittal to “end the era of impeachment.”


While in that hearing, something unheard of happened: Sen. Mitt Romney attempted to take his bottle of chocolate milk onto the Senate chamber. I know what you’re thinking: “That’s so dangerous! Anything would be in that tiny brown-spotted bottle! This is creating a mockery of the full system! Stop him!!” Thankfully, he was stopped by a page, who poured his milk into a glass, VICE reported.


Soon after Mr. Trump’s legal team finished, Romney, his milk, and all the other Republican senators met to discuss whether they should permit more witnesses. They didn’t come to a clear decision, yet Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell mentioned in a private meeting that Republicans didn’t nevertheless have enough votes to block witnesses, the New York Times announced. If more are allowed, there’s a chance the hearings could continue for weeks.


Wednesday, January 29


Right after hearing from the Home managers and Trump’s lawyers, Senators were finally allowed to ask their inquiries — yet not out loud. Since silence and sort are of utmost importance, Senators asked questions by writing them down and sending them to presiding Justice John Roberts, who then asked them out loud. Democrats attempted to ask leading questions that would decide just how impeachable Trump’s actions were, and Republicans asked leading questions that would decide just how awful Home managers were.


It was while in these questions that something truly wild happened: Trump’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz basically mentioned that anything the president does to be re-elected can be seen as a task to help the national security and is so not impeachable, CNN reports.


“A detailed middle case is, ‘I desire to be elected. I think I’m a fantastic president. I think I’m the greatest president there ever was, and if I’m not elected, the national interest will suffer greatly.’ That cannot be an impeachable offense,” Dershowitz said.


This line of reasoning could carry over to the question of adding witnesses — right considering that, if bribing another country to dig up dirt of a political rival for purely personalized reasons isn’t impeachable, then corroborating witnesses to that accusation won’t do much to change the verdict. Schumer, for his part, mentioned Democrats are struggling to get the votes to permit added witnesses. “We’ve routinely known it will be a uphill fight on witnesses and documents as the president and Mitch McConnell put huge pressure on these folks,” Schumer mentioned, according to the New York Times.


In a question she submitted to Chief Justice Roberts, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) compared Trump to former President Richard Nixon — and simultaneously made the Supreme Court Justice recite a quote from Trump’s resurfaced Access Hollywood interview in the process.


“President Nixon mentioned, “When the president does it, that insinuates that it isn't illegal,” Harris mentioned through Justice Roberts, referencing the then-President’s infamous interview with David Frost. “Before he was elected, President Trump mentioned, ‘When you’re a star, they let you do it. You could do anything.’ Immediately after he was elected, President Trump mentioned that Article II of the Constitution gives him ‘the right to do whichever [he] want[s] as president. These statements propose that each of those considered that the president is above the law — a belief reflected in the improper actions that both presidents took to affect their reelection campaigns. If the Senate fails to hold the president responsible for misconduct, how would that undermine the integrity of our system of justice?”


Rep. Adam Schiff answered: “Senators, I think this is exactly fear. In the event you look at the pattern in this president's conduct in his words, what you visualize is a president who identifies the state as being himself. As soon as the president talks about people that report his wrongdoing, as an example, any time whenever he describes a whistleblower as a traitor or a spy. The only way you could conceive of someone who reports wrongdoing as committing a crime against nation is in case you believe you are synonymous with the country.”


Thursday, January 30


Legislators asked more questions and debated Wednesday’s offer problem of “Can Trump Even Be Impeached If He Did Ask A Foreign Country To Dabble In The U.S. For His Own Personalized And Political Gain?” Schiff argued that, yes, “Public officials are inherently political animals,” although that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be repercussions for corrupt behavior, according to the Washington Post. “We’re not talking about taking away someone’s liberty. We’re talking about a political punishment for a political crime.”


Things also got a little bit heated for Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on Thursday once Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) attempted to out the whistleblower by asking a question with their name in it. Roberts had to mention, “Nah, we good,” because he didn’t aspire to name the whistleblower, and declined to read his question out loud.


The discomfort wasn’t over for Roberts although, though, given that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sassed the heck out of the Chief Justice. She sent him this question to read out loud: “At a time once large majorities of Residents of the
U.S. Have lost faith in government, does the fact that the Chief Justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have so far rejected to permit witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution?”


Yikes.


Friday, January 31


Right after four hours of debate, the Senate voted against calling new witnesses and documents in the impeachment trial on a nearly party-line vote, according to the New York Times. The only Republican senators who broke with their party and voted for allowing the extra statistics were Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine. The final vote was 51-49.


“The facts will come out — in all of their horror, they are going to come out,” Schiff mentioned before the vote. “The witnesses the president is concealing will tell their stories. And we'll be asked why we didn’t hope to hear that intelligence any time we had the chance. What answer shall we give if we don't pursue the truth now?”


Right now, the Senate moves on to the final stage of the trial. Lawmakers would need to vote with a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, to convict Trump of wrongdoing and remove him from office. Otherwise, he’ll be acquitted of wrongdoing — though he’ll still have technically been impeached. That vote will probably take place within the next week. Stay tuned!