NO WITNESSES.
Senate vote all but ensures Trump’s acquittal in impeachment trial
WASHINGTON — The Senate narrowly rejected Democratic demands to summon witnesses for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial late Friday, all but ensuring Trump’s acquittal in just the third trial to threaten a president’s removal in U.S. history. But senators pushed off final voting on his fate to next Wednesday.
The delay in timing showed the weight of a historic vote bearing down on senators, despite prodding by the president eager to have it all behind him in an election year and ahead of his State of the Union speech Tuesday night.
Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke by phone to lock in the schedule during a tense night at the Capitol as rushed negotiations proceeded on and off the Senate floor. The trial came to a standstill for about an hour. A person unauthorized to discuss the call was granted anonymity to describe it.
The president wanted to arrive for his speech at the Capitol with acquittal secured, but that will not happen. Instead, the trial will resume Monday for final arguments, with time Monday and Tuesday for senators to speak. The final voting is planned for 4 p.m. Wednesday, the day after Trump’s speech.
Trump’s acquittal is all but certain in the Senate, where his GOP allies hold the majority and there’s nowhere near the two-thirds needed for conviction and removal.
Nor will he face potentially damaging, openSenate testimony from witnesses.
Despite the Democrats’ singular focus on hearing new testimony, the Republican majority brushed past those demands and will make this the first impeachment trial without witnesses. Even new revelations Friday from former national security adviser John Bolton did not sway GOP senators, who said they’d heard enough.
That means the eventual outcome for Trump will be an acquittal “in name only,” said Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., a House prosecutor, during final debate.
Trump was impeached by the House last month on charges that he abused power and obstructed Congress as he tried to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, using military aid as leverage as the ally fought Russia. He is charged with then blocking the congressional probe of his actions.
Senators rejected the Democrats’ effort to allow new witnesses 51-49, a near party-line vote. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah voted with the Democrats, but that was not enough.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called that decision “a tragedy on a very large scale.” Protesters’ chants reverberated against the walls of the Capitol.
The Democrats had badly wanted testimony from Bolton, whose forthcoming book links
Trump directly to the charges. But Bolton won’t be summoned, and none of this appeared to affect the trial’s expected outcome. Democrats forced a series of new procedural votes late Friday to call Bolton and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, among others, but all were rejected.
In an unpublished manuscript, Bolton has written that the president asked him during an Oval Office meeting in early May to bolster his effort to get Ukraine to investigate Democrats, according to a person who read the passage and told the Associated Press. The person, who was not authorized to disclose contents of the book, spoke only on condition of anonymity.
In the meeting, Bolton said the president asked him to call new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and persuade him to meet with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was planning to go to Ukraine to coax the Ukrainians to investigate the president’s political rivals. Bolton writes that he never made the call to Zelensky after the meeting, which included acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. Trump issued a quick denial.
“I never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest corruption fighters in America and by far the greatest mayor in the history of NYC, to meet with President Zelensky,” Trump said. “That meeting never happened.”
Key Republican senators said even if Trump committed the offenses as charged by the House, they are not impeachable and the partisan proceedings must end.
“I didn’t need any more evidence because I thought it was proved that the president did what he was charged with doing,” retiring GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a late holdout, told reporters Friday at the Capitol. “But that didn’t rise to the level of an impeachable offense.”
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she, too, would oppose more testimony in the charged partisan atmosphere, having “come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate.” She said, “The Congress has failed.”
WASHINGTON — A vigorous debate behind the scenes at President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial on Friday was whether senators would explain from the Senate floor their votes to acquit or convict the president.
Trump will be acquitted. Just not on Friday night.
The final votes on the two articles of impeachment — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — will be Wednesday at 3 p.m.
The Senate will reconvene as a court of impeachment at 10 a.m. Monday for closing arguments. After that, until Wednesday, the Senate will revert to being its usual legislative body — so senators, muzzled during the trial, can explain their votes.
This much will be a fact on Wednesday night: Trump will still be the third president of the United States to be impeached and nothing he can tweet will change that.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not have the backing of his members to push through Trump’s acquittal vote on Friday.
Up to the Senate witness vote on Friday, everything was scripted from the start — from the number of hours for arguments, to senators knowing in advance they would be submitting written questions Wednesday and Thursday.
Senate Republicans, as expected by Friday morning, voted 51-49 to defeat a motion to call witnesses; Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah were the only defectors. Though there was no suspense to the outcome, I found the vote dramatic, witnessing history from the Senate gallery as each senator stood to vote when his or her name was called.
The Senate vote officially affirmed the success of Trump’s stonewalling strategy. His trial will conclude in a few days with the Senate calling not a single witness, and the Trump administration forced to turn over no documents.
After that witness roll call, McConnell declared a recess subject to the call of the chair because it was time for some dealmaking. Democrats and Republicans retreated into their meetings to figure out the road ahead.
Democrats had been pressing for senators to have time to explain their votes. Earlier on Friday Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters: “Members have an obligation to tell the American people and to tell the people of their states why they are voting.”
Later on Friday, Schumer tried again to force witnesses and documents, failing but getting Republicans on record in a series of resolutions. Schumer asked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding,
if he would vote in case of a tie. Roberts said he would not.
The Senate has the weekend off after a week marked by marathon sessions stretching some days until 10 p.m.
That means the four Democratic senators running for president can sprint back to Iowa this weekend to campaign before the first-inthe-nation Iowa caucuses Monday night.
The 2020 rivals who have been forced to stay in Washington for the trial are Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennet.
What this timetable means is that Trump will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday night before a joint session of Congress with his case not yet officially decided but with the outcome known. There never were 67 Senate votes to convict him.
Trump will be in the House of Representatives, whose Democratic members voted to impeach him. He will be speaking from a rostrum with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi behind him. It will be another historic day in the Trump presidency, where he has successfully defied every norm.