Day 1,104: GOP doesn’t have votes to block impeachment witnesses yet, Trump begins to panic
Donald Trump’s lawyers wrapped up their impeachment defense before the Senate on Tuesday. The big question remaining is whether the Senate will choose to hear from witnesses, including those with alleged first-hand accounts of Trump’s attempt to extort Ukraine to do his political bidding.
The plan from Republicans was always to make the trial a farce and get it over with as fast as possible: acquit and move on.
But recent revelations from Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, in addition to polling indicating Americans are wildly unhappy with the GOP’s handling of impeachment, and things are getting hairier for Trump and Republicans. Suddenly, it’s not a slam dunk that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will be able to block witnesses, including those potentially damaging to Trump.
In a closed-door meeting after closing remarks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told colleagues he doesn’t have the votes to block witnesses, according to people familiar with his remarks who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe them. Just four GOP senators would have to join with Democrats to produce the majority needed to call witnesses — an outcome McConnell has sought to avoid since it could invite new controversy and draw out the divisive proceedings.
Meanwhile, Trump’s legal team — like they did just three days ago —keeps accidentally making the argument in favor of calling witnesses.
Democrats intend to ask questions about the revelations from Bolton, which White House attorney Jay Sekulow attacked on the Senate floor Tuesday. Without directly disputing Bolton’s claims, Sekulow read statements from Trump, the Justice Department, and a top aide to Vice President Pence denying or disputing them.
“That was the response, responding to an unpublished manuscript that maybe some reporters have an idea of maybe what it says,” Sekulow said. “If you want to call [Bolton’s manuscript] evidence — I don’t know what you’d call that. I call it inadmissible.”
Even if the manuscript is inadmissible, which is something Chief Justice John Roberts could rule on, Bolton could testify, under oath, and his testimony would be admissible. The solution to Trump’s legal team’s weak “gotcha” moment is to simply call witnesses.
Bolton’s testimony would be based on direct observations, so there aren’t hearsay considerations, and there are no other issues that would seem to make Bolton’s testimony inadmissible. (Nevertheless in all likelihood, Trump’s team will try to prevent his testimony at all costs, something which doesn’t make Trump look innocent.) In response to Bolton’s testimony, Trump is welcome to testify if he wants to personally rebut Bolton’s claims.
Trump isn’t taking any of this well. Like a dictator lashing out at state TV, he excoriated Fox News for not being sycophantic enough.
And he’s reverting back to his favorite hits.
While Trump is still in no danger of being removed from office, things are far tighter for him and the GOP than they ever envisioned when it comes to the trial being drawn out. Calling witnesses could take the impeachment trial from a two-week exercise to a two-month exercise. And Donald Trump has never been fond of exercising.
1,104 days in, 358 to go
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