Senate won’t call witnesses in impeachment trial
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted narrowly Friday to bring the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump to a close without issuing subpoenas for witnesses or evidence, rejecting Democrats’ principal demand and clearing the way for an allbut-certain acquittal to take place Wednesday afternoon.
The vote, 49-51, was sharply partisan with only two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah — breaking ranks to join Democrats in their push to issue subpoenas for former national security adviser John Bolton and perhaps others.
While the vote opens the way for Trump’s acquittal, it came amid two setbacks for the White House. One was logistical — the final vote will not happen as quickly as Trump had wanted and will not take place until after Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, meaning the president will not be able to use that prominent forum to declare himself acquitted.
The second, more significant setback involved the tone of Republican senators, as several began saying that while they will vote to keep Trump in office, they believe the evidence has proved that he committed misconduct.
Bolton had offered to testify in the Senate trial about allegations, detailed in his upcoming book, that Trump withheld U.S. aid to Ukraine in an attempt to pressure that country to announce investigations of Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden. Those claims struck at the heart of the House’s impeachment article charging Trump with abuse of power. A second article charged Trump with obstructing Congress by blocking his administration from participating in the House investigation.
“It’s a grand tragedy,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said after the vote, referring to the lack of witnesses in the impeachment trial. “Americans will remember this day — where the Senate did not live up to its responsibilities.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., defended the move, saying in a statement: “Never in Senate history has this body paused an impeachment trial to pursue additional witnesses with unresolved questions of executive privilege that would require protracted litigation.”
After the vote Friday evening, Republicans banded together to defeat four Democratic amendments. Democrats proposed subpoenas for Bolton as well as acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and also proposed that the chief justice rule on motions for subpoenas instead of senators. They all failed.
The Senate will come back Monday, when senators will hear closing arguments from House managers and Trump’s attorneys, and then be given time to speak on the floor about their position on the impeachment articles. On Tuesday, there will be more floor speeches, and the final vote would occur Wednesday, under a resolution approved Friday night.
Some Republicans wanted to hold a vote as quickly as possible because there is risk in waiting five days, even though the threshold for convicting the president is exceedingly high at 67 votes. More information about Bolton’s book has continued to come out this week.
“The cake is baked, and we just need to go ahead and move on as soon as we can,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of several Republican senators who were advocating for a swift end to the trial.
But Democrats insisted on holding several amendment votes that made a quick turnaround all but impossible with Monday’s Iowa caucuses and Tuesday’s State of the Union address.
The vote on whether to call witnesses provided the only real suspense in the third presidential impeachment trial in American history.
But that ended Friday morning when Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, announced she would not vote for subpoenaing witnesses. She was seen as Democrats’ last hope of mustering four Republicans to join their effort.
In a blistering statement, Murkowski heaped blame on all sides for what she described as a poorly handled impeachment, from start to finish.
“The House chose to send articles of impeachment that are rushed and flawed,” she said in a statement. “I carefully considered the need for additional witnesses and documents, to cure the shortcomings of its process, but ultimately decided that I will vote against considering motions to subpoena.”
She added that due to the partisan nature of the impeachment proceeding, she has concluded that “there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”