Trump Trial Hits Question Phase; GOP Girds for Witness Vote
Democrats are just four Republican votes short of being able to extend the trial and get testimony.
(Bloomberg) -- Senators will spend the next two days grilling President Donald Trump’s defense team and House impeachment managers, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell trying to salvage his plans for a quick trial, which hinge on a pivotal vote on witnesses that could be held Friday.
McConnell’s aim of ending Trump’s trial by the end of the week were tossed in the air by a bombshell from former National Security Advisor John Bolton -- a draft manuscript reported to say that the president directly linked giving aid to Ukraine to getting the country’s help gathering dirt on a political rival.
McConnell told his colleagues at a hastily called meeting of GOP senators on Tuesday afternoon that there weren’t yet 51 firm Republican votes to unequivocally block calling witnesses, according a GOP aide. A failure would be a major blow to McConnell and the White House.
The Republican leader’s warning will increase pressure on any wavering Republicans. Democrats are just four Republican votes short of being able to extend the trial and get testimony. Three GOP senators -- Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski -- have expressed interest in hearing from Bolton, and they’ll be intensely lobbied by both sides over the next two days, as will several others who haven’t committed one way or the other.
On Wednesday, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin became the first Democrat to break ranks and say he would vote to call Hunter Biden as a witness if U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, deems him pertinent to the case. “I want to hear everything I can,” Manchin told MSNBC.
The impeachment charges alleged that Trump wanted Ukraine to initiate an investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company when his father was vice president, in exchange for releasing U.S. security assistance.
Despite the lingering uncertainty on witnesses, South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune expressed confidence that the trial would get wrapped up quickly.
“We’re kind of on schedule,” he said.
The key votes will be held Friday, first on whether to allow witness testimony and then to select witnesses. A simple majority of 51 senators will decide. Even if witnesses are called, no Republican has suggested Trump’s eventual acquittal is in question. It would take 67 votes to convict Trump and remove him from office. Multiple GOP senators said Tuesday that even if Bolton’s account is true it isn’t enough to convict.
A person on the president’s legal team said they are preparing for the possibility of witnesses but declined to say whether Trump would invoke executive privilege to block Bolton from testifying before the Senate.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that there’s no basis for the Senate to address new developments in the trial or seek evidence that the House didn’t present in its articles of impeachment.
First-Hand Account
Trump’s defense team and his Republican allies say Democrats have no first-hand evidence that the president sought such a linkage. But in a book scheduled for publication in March, Bolton writes that Trump explicitly told him last August that the two things were tied, according to the New York Times.
Many Republicans latched on to the argument presented Monday night by celebrity lawyer and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. “Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense,” he said.
“If you stipulate that something took place but it didn’t cross a certain threshold, then it doesn’t matter what took place,” Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, said.
Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma offered an interim step as a compromise. He said he’s calling on the White House and Bolton’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, to give the Senate access to Bolton’s manuscript, and he’s backed by Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer dismissed that as “absurd” and said it wouldn’t substitute for putting questions to Bolton under oath.
Schumer said that if Republicans want to call witnesses like the Bidens, they are free to do so. But he also predicted GOP wouldn’t have 51 votes to do that because senators would be wary of turning the proceedings into a circus.
Question Strategies
The strategies of both sides will be at least partly revealed when Democrats and Republicans begin their questions starting at 1 p.m. Wednesday. The two parties will alternate as their written questions are posed to lawyers for each side. There will be up to 16 hours of questioning spread over two days. Roberts has asked the lawyers to keep their answers to five minutes, potentially allowing more than 100 questions.
While many senators aren’t revealing what they will ask, it’s a chance for Democrats to put Trump’s lawyers on the spot on all the evidence Trump continues to block -- including documents relating to his decision to freeze aide to Ukraine last year, and administration witnesses.
Democrats want to call four witnesses, including Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. They can also give the House managers a chance to respond to three days of Trump’s defense arguments that he didn’t abuse his powers by withholding aid to Ukraine and that it wouldn’t be impeachable even if he did.
Republicans in turn have been telegraphing questions about the Bidens, about the motivations of the whistle-blower whose complaint touched off the impeachment inquiry, and about House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff’s handling of the whistle-blower and the broader impeachment process in the House.
Trump’s Senate allies have threatened to try to subpoena the Bidens, the whistle-blower and Schiff, among others, if the Senate backs a subpoena for anyone.
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democratic leader, said he’s submitted 10 questions for Schumer to consider. He declined to tip his hand as to what he wants to ask the lawyers, but said leaders in both parties clearly will want to use the opportunity to keep telling a narrative as the trial reaches a critical juncture.
“They’re looking to avoid duplication and pick the ones in sequence that make sense in terms of delivering a message,” Durbin told reporters.
--With assistance from Jordan Fabian, Erik Wasson, Daniel Flatley and Laura Davison.
To contact the reporters on this story: Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net;Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net;Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk, John Harney
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