How Senate trial got to no on any witnesses
Despite evidence, little would move Republican votes
The debate among the House impeachment managers raged through the night, as the hours ticked down early Saturday before what was widely expected to be the final day of former president Donald Trump’s Senate trial.
After weeks of bending to political pressure to ensure a speedy proceeding, some on the House team wanted to make one final push to demand a more intensive investigation — to call witnesses to talk about Trump’s behavior before, during and after the mob attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Should they seek to call a Republican lawmaker who was willing to talk about her knowledge of Trump’s dismissive comments to the House GOP leader who pleaded with him during the riot to call off his supporters? Should they call the leader himself, Kevin Mccarthy, R-calif.? What about aides to former vice president Mike Pence? Any of those moves risked extending the proceedings for weeks, but nonetheless, these potential surprise developments consumed the managers late into Friday night and in the wee hours Saturday, according to multiple Democrats familiar with the deliberations.
In the end, the managers backed off, allowing the Senate vote to take place as expected, but not before a chaotic back-andforth caught senators off-guard, sent Trump’s legal team into a fury, and tensions among Democrats over how aggressively
to hold the former president accountable.
Even after House Democrats declared a moral victory, pointing to the seven Republican senators who voted to convict, the debate over witness testimony loomed as questions about Trump’s actions and
motives remained unanswered.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D -Md., the lead impeachment manager, defended the decision on witnesses after Trump’s acquittal Saturday. He noted to reporters that several Republicans had acknowledged that the managers had made their case yet opted to acquit Trump on a constitutional technicality.
“We could have had 500 witnesses, and it would not have overcome the kinds of arguments being made by Mitch Mcconnell and other Republicans who were hanging their hats on the claim that it was somehow unconstitutional to try a former president,” he said.
The final push toward witnesses started Friday evening, when several Republican senators telegraphed their concern about Trump’s conduct as the rioters tore through the Capitol.
During a question-andanswer period, Sens. Mitt Romney, R-utah, and Susan Collins, R-maine, asked whether Trump was aware that Pence had been rushed to safety when he sent a tweet attacking Pence for not having “the courage to do what should have been done.” Later, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-LA., also asked about Trump and Pence.
Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen dodged those questions, challenging the managers’ evidence.
He then made a claim that raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle: “I’m sure Mr. Trump very much is concerned and was concerned for the safety and well-being of Mr. Pence and everybody else that was over here.”
Republicans, including Cassidy, knew that that plainly wasn’t true.
But by Saturday morning, the bulk of Senate Democrats arrived in the Capitol not expecting the face a witness vote. The case the House had presented, they thought, was overwhelming and witnesses would do little to move GOP votes.
The end of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial opens a new chapter for his successor in the White
House.
But while President Joe Biden and his team are eager to move past the impeachment, the bitterly partisan tone of the proceedings underscores the deep challenges ahead as the president and his party try to push forward their agenda and address historic crises.
Biden, who was at the Camp David presidential retreat when the Senate voted Saturday to acquit Trump, acknowledged Democrats needed to hold the former president responsible for the siege but did not welcome the way it distracted from his agenda.
The trial ended with every Democrat and seven Republicans voting to convict Trump, but the 57-43 vote was far from the two-third threshold required for conviction. Whether the seven GOP votes offered Biden new hope for bipartisan cooperation within Congress remains an open question.
Biden was expected to address the verdict in a written statement to help calm a nation still roiled by four years of Trump’s tumult. But then his aides aimed to quickly move on — something Democrats said they’ve been waiting to do for weeks.
Biden made a point of not watching the trial live, choosing to comment only briefly on the searing images of the riot that gripped the nation. Though his White House publicly argued that the trial did not hinder their plans, aides privately worried that a lengthy proceeding could bog down the Senate and slow the passage of his massive COVID -19 relief bill. That $1.9 trillion proposal is just the first part of a sweeping legislative agenda Biden hopes to pass as he battles the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 480,000 Americans and rattled the nation’s economy.
“The No. 1 priority for Democrats and the Biden administration is going to be to deliver on the promises that have been made on the pandemic, both on the vaccine front and the economic front,” said Democratic strategist Josh Schwerin.
The end of the impeachment trial frees the party to focus on less divisive and more broadly popular issues and policies, like the coronavirus relief package, which polls show has significant support among Americans.
Throughout his campaign, Biden worked to avoid being defined by Trump and his controversies and instead sought to draw a contrast on policy and competence, a guiding principle that he and his aides have carried over into the White
House.
His team kept up a steady drumbeat of events during the trial, including an update on vaccine development and Biden’s first visit to the Pentagon as commander in chief. With the proceedings on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue now over, the White House plans to increase its efforts to spotlight the fight against the pandemic and push past Trump’s chaos.
Former Democratic
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota predicted that in a state like hers, where Trump won 65% of the vote, focusing on those urgent issues would make more headway with average voters now.
“What we have to be talking about is the economy — getting the economy back working, and turning the page” on the last administration, she said. “Good policy is good politics. We need to get back to that.“
Democrats have a decision to make in how to deal with Trump going forward. While the end of the impeachment trial offers a clear opportunity for the party to focus squarely on its own agenda, Trump can also be a potent political weapon for Democrats, not to mention a big driver of campaign cash.
After Saturday’s vote, American Bridge 21st Century, the Democratic Party’s opposition research arm, issued a statement calling out senators from Ohio and Florida, two states that Democrats are targeting in the 2022 election, for voting against convicting Trump.
“Ron Johnson, Marco Rubio, and nearly every other Senate Republican put their loyalty to Donald Trump ahead of the rule of law, the Capitol police officers who protect them every day, and the oaths they swore to uphold the Constitution,” said Bradley Beychock, the group’s president. He called the senators “spineless sycophants.”
Still, Schwerin cautioned that Trump can’t be Democrats’ primary focus.
“We shouldn’t ignore the fact that a lot of the problems that the country is dealing with are because of Trump’s failures, but he shouldn’t be the focus of every fundraising email and press release. We should be looking forward,” he said.
Biden plans to keep up a busy schedule focused on the coronavirus pandemic in the coming week.