Impeachment formally moves on to Senate
Some Republicans are open to idea of calling witnesses during trial
WASHINGTON — The House delivered two articles of impeachment to the Senate on Wednesday, laying the groundwork for President Donald Trump’s trial as Republicans rallied behind the idea of parity between the two parties in possibly calling witnesses.
The impeachment managers’ brief ceremonial journey across the Capitol relinquished Democratic control over a process that is expected to end in the president’s election-year acquittal by the Republican-led Senate. The procession, which solemnly set in motion the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history, capped a rancorous day of partisan conflict and heightened the pressure on Senate moderates, whose views on seeking additional evidence will define the scope of Trump’s trial.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declared that Trump was guilty of “an assault on the Constitution of the United States” and rejected criticism that his impeachment was politically motivated.
“We take it very seriously,” Pelosi said in remarks on the
House floor. “It’s not personal. It’s not political. It’s not partisan. It’s patriotic.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., attacked the House’s inquiry as “unprecedented and dangerous” and accused Democrats of “pure factionalism.”
“This has been naked partisanship all along,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “... We had a 230-year tradition of rejecting purely political impeachments. It died last month.”
As tensions increased across the Capitol, new evidence of Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine for his political benefit added urgency to Democrats’ push for more witness testimony and documents during the trial phase.
Records from Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, showed Ukraine’s top prosecutor offering damaging information related to former vice president Joe Biden if the Trump administration recalled the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
They also revealed claims from a Republican congressional candidate that he had the thenambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, under physical and electronic surveillance.
The impeachment charges — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — center on the allegation that Trump withheld military aid and a White House meeting to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, including Biden.
Pelosi argued that the revelations proved the wisdom of her decision to withhold the articles for a month, a gambit that did not fulfill her primary goals of ensuring witness testimony or forcing McConnell to outline terms for the trial.
“Time has been our friend in all of this, because it has yielded incriminating evidence, more truth into the public domain,” the speaker said at a Capitol Hill news conference.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, one of the moderates whose views on further evidence could shape the trial, held a different view.
“Doesn’t that suggest that the House did an incomplete job, then?” she said.
The records were released Tuesday night by the four House committees that ran the impeachment inquiry, just as Senate Republicans began coalescing around the idea of each party having the opportunity to call witnesses, should enough moderates agree with Democrats that more evidence is needed.
A day after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, proposed the idea of “reciprocity” — which would enable Trump’s legal team to call Hunter Biden if Democrats get enough votes to summon former national security adviser John Bolton, for example — two moderate Republicans signaled they were open to the idea.
“The idea that only the House managers should be able to call witnesses is one I reject,” said Collins, who has insisted on a vote on whether to call witnesses. “It clearly should be both sides, both sides should have the opportunity. But as far as approving specific witnesses, I haven’t heard the case yet.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Wednesday that he would be amenable to each side choosing “which witnesses they want to appear, as opposed to going in and saying, ‘Well, I want that one, I want that one.’ ... I think I expect both sides to be able to put together their own list of demands.”
Should moderates decide witnesses are necessary, it would require four Republicans to join with all members of the Democratic caucus to vote in favor.