Senate trial: GOP is not ruling out calling witnesses

PALM BEACH: Senate majority leader Mitch Mcconnell said Monday that he was not ruling out calling witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial — but indicated he was in no hurry to seek new testimony either — as lawmakers remain at an impasse over the form of the trial by the Gop-controlled Senate.

The House voted on Wednesday to impeach Trump, who became only the third president in US history to be formally charged with “high crimes and misdemeanours.” But the Senate trial may be held up until lawmakers can agree on how to proceed. Minority leader Chuck Schumer is demanding witnesses who refused to appear during House committee hearings, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and former national security adviser John Bolton.

Mcconnell, who has all-butpromised a swift acquittal of the president, has resisted making any guarantees, and has cautioned Trump against seeking the testimony of witnesses he desires for fear of elongating the trial.

“We haven’t ruled out witnesses,” Mcconnell said on Monday in an interview with “Fox and Friends.”

“We’ve said let’s handle this case just like we did with President Clinton. Fair is fair.”

KEY POST FOR AIDE WHO DEFIED SUBPOENA

President Trump named Robert Blair to be the special representative for international telecommunications policy and work on the administration’s 5G efforts under White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, the White House said in a statement on Monday.

As the senior adviser to the White House chief of staff, Blair defied a subpoena from a House of Representatives committee as part of its impeachment inquiry into whether Trump improperly pressed Ukraine to investigate his domestic political rival, Joe Biden.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has also called for Blair to testify in the Senate’s expected impeachment trial.

TEHRAN: Iran began new operations on Monday at a heavy water nuclear reactor, the head of the country’s nuclear agency said. The move was seemingly designed to intensify pressure on Europe to find an effective way around US sanctions that block Tehran’s oil sales abroad.

Starting up the Arak heavy water reactor’s secondary circuit doesn’t violate Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. But it does inch Tehran’s program closer toward weaponsgrade levels. Ali Akbar Salehi explained to state TV that the secondary circuit transfers heat to the reactor’s cooling system.

He said the entire reactor system will go online in 2021. Heavy water helps cool reactors, producing plutonium as a by-product that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. UK is helping Iran redesign the Arak reactor to limit its plutonium production. Iran has slowly stepped up violations of the nuclear deal to pressure world powers to provide more incentives to make up for the US withdrawal from the deal and economic sanctions, which are having a crushing effect on Iran’s economy.