End closer as key senator says he’ll oppose witnesses
WASHINGTON — An end to President Trump’s impeachment trial appeared closer late Thursday when one influential Republican senator said he would not support a call for more witnesses.
Earlier, one of Trump’s attorneys tried to explain his controversial defense. Meanwhile, another Republican senator was dramatically thwarted in his questioning by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander’s announcement late Thursday that he will oppose calling more witnesses all but dashed Democratic efforts to hear more testimony.
Another key Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said she would vote for more witnesses, but it would take four GOP senators to break with the majority and join with Democrats to tip the outcome.
“There is no need for more evidence,” Alexander said in his statement.
While he said it was “inappropriate’” for the president to ask Ukraine to investigate a political rival, he said the House charges, even if true,
“do not meet the Constitution’s ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors’ standard for an impeachable offense.”
Collins said she wanted the House Democrats prosecuting the case and the president’s defense attorneys to agree on “a limited and equal number of witnesses for each side.”
A vote on witnesses, expected Friday, could lead to an abrupt end of the trial with the expected acquittal.
Alan Dershowitz, one of Trump’s lawyers and a renowned Harvard professor, delivered a stunning defense of Trump Wednesday night that essentially would make it impossible to impeach a president for anything he might do to boost his reelection prospects. The argument was quickly and forcefully denounced by legal scholars, historians and editorial boards who said there are clear limits on presidential authority.
Dershowitz seemed to backtrack Thursday, saying his remarks have been misinterpreted. But Democrats seized on them as they pressed their case for Trump’s removal from office for tying the release of military aid to Ukraine to an investigation of his political rivals.
“I never said a president could do anything to get reelected,” Dershowitz said on Twitter. “A president seeking reelection cannot do anything he wants. He is not above the law.”
But Democrats said that is exactly what Dershowitz claimed Wednesday: “If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” he said on the Senate floor.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead Democratic prosecutor called Dershowitz’s argument “a descent into constitutional madness.”
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky roiled the trial briefly Thursday as he tried to ask about the intelligence community whistleblower whose complaint led to the investigation that resulted in impeachment. Paul has said he believes the whistleblower may have conspired with House staff aides in writing the August complaint.
Roberts, who has told senators the whistleblower’s identity should be protected, refused to read the question aloud. He did not say what was on the card.
In a rare show of bipartisanship, two Democrats — Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin — joined with two Republicans, Alaskan Lisa Murkowski and
Susan Collins of Maine, to ask a question.
The lawmakers wanted to be assured by the president that private citizens would not conduct foreign policy unless they’ve been specifically designated by the State Department to do so. The question referred to Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who played a key role in the Ukraine investigation.
White House lawyer Patrick Philbin said Giuliani was merely a “source of information” for Trump on Ukraine and was not conducting foreign policy. Even George Washington relied on trusted confidants, Philbin noted.