(Bloomberg) -- Senate Democrats are making a final plea to at least a few GOP senators to call witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial as senators began two days of questioning his defense team and House prosecutors.The next phase of the trial got under way Wednesday amid signs that a showdown vote at the end of the week on w
hether to call more witnesses is up for grabs. A full 16 hours of questioning will give both parties a chance to shape the debate on getting testimony from former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton or others, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s son.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is working behind the scenes to keep Republicans in line to reject a move to call witnesses in a pivotal vote as soon as Friday. Defeating that motion would lead to a quick wrap up of the trial before Trump’s State of the Union address next Tuesday.
That outcome was thrown into question by the bombshell revelation that Bolton wrote in a book draft that the president directly linked giving aid to Ukraine to getting the country’s help gathering dirt Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
McConnell told his colleagues at a hastily called meeting of GOP senators on Tuesday afternoon that there weren’t yet 51 firm Republican votes to block calling witnesses, according a GOP aide.
Pressure Campaign
It was a move that could increase pressure on any wavering Republicans. A number of Republicans who hadn’t publicly revealed their stance, including Cory Gardner of Colorado and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, made clear Wednesday that they plan to vote against witnesses.
Three GOP senators -- Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski -- have expressed interest in hearing from Bolton, and they’re being intensely lobbied by both sides, as are several others who haven’t committed one way or the other.
Romney said Wednesday that Bolton is a crucial witness in deciding the impeachment case.
“I have a great deal of confidence in John Bolton,” Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, told reporters. He said Bolton could answer key questions such as what explanation Trump gave advisers when he decided to delay military aid for Ukraine, and even whether the “president himself” told them the aid was held “in order to encourage them to investigate the Bidens.”
Questions
The first question in Wednesday’s session came from Collins, co-signed by Murkowski and Romney, asking Trump’s counsel how they should consider various motives by Trump for his actions.
Trump lawyer Patrick Philbin answered that if there are mixed motives, for both policy and political reasons, “their case fails and you can’t possibly have impeachment.”
Democratic Senator Ed Markey asked the House managers whether they sought Bolton’s testimony, noting that Trump tweeted that they had not. Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, who led the House team, responded that the House sought Bolton’s testimony as well as that of his deputies.
The White House kept its own pressure campaign to end the trial quickly without Bolton’s testimony. Trump unleashed a series of tweets denigrating Bolton and warning Republicans against voting for witnesses, writing, “Don’t let the Dems play you!”
The National Security Council also wrote to Bolton’s lawyer that his book manuscript “appears to contain significant amounts of classified information” and can’t be published unless that material is deleted.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said early Wednesday he remains “hopeful” that four Republican senators will join with the Senate’s 47 Democrats to approve subpoenas for witnesses and documents the Trump administration blocked during the House’s impeachment probe. He blasted some Republicans who say they don’t want witnesses because it won’t change the outcome.
“A fair trial matters whatever the outcome,” Schumer said.
While Collins and Murkowski have said Bolton is an important witness, Murkowski avoided questions early Wednesday, the morning after all Senate Republicans met behind closed door for more than an hour to talk strategy and left with no consensus.
“You know, I am not going to share my personal thoughts with you this morning,” she said as she entered the Senate chamber. “Thank you, though.”
On Wednesday, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin became the first Democrat to break ranks and say he would vote to call Hunter Biden as a witness if U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, deems him pertinent to the case. “I want to hear everything I can,” Manchin told MSNBC.
Manchin is one of three Democrats who are being closely watched for indications they would vote to acquit Trump. Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, and Alabama Democrat Doug Jones also haven’t indicated whether they think Trump is guilty of the House’s two articles of impeachment.
“I’m going to see how it ends up and judge the evidence I have before me,” said Jones, who faces voters in November in a heavily Republican state.
The impeachment charges alleged that Trump wanted Ukraine to initiate an investigation of Biden, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination and his son in order to help with the president’s re-election campaign.
Despite the lingering uncertainty on witnesses, South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune expressed confidence that the trial would get wrapped up quickly. He said Wednesday that GOP leaders will know where Republican votes are on the matter of more witnesses well before tally is taken.
The key votes will be held Friday, first on whether to allow witness testimony and then to select witnesses. A simple majority of 51 senators will decide. Even if witnesses are called, no Republican has suggested Trump’s eventual acquittal is in question. It would take 67 votes to convict Trump and remove him from office. Multiple GOP senators said Tuesday that even if Bolton’s account is true it isn’t enough to convict.
A person on the president’s legal team said they are preparing for the possibility of witnesses but declined to say whether Trump would invoke executive privilege to block Bolton from testifying before the Senate.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that there’s no basis for the Senate to address new developments in the trial or seek evidence that the House didn’t present in its articles of impeachment.
First-Hand Account
Trump’s defense team and his Republican allies say Democrats have no first-hand evidence that the president sought such a linkage. But in a book scheduled for publication in March, Bolton writes that Trump explicitly told him last August that the two things were tied, according to the New York Times.
Many Republicans latched on to the argument presented Monday night by celebrity lawyer and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. “Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense,” he said.
“If you stipulate that something took place but it didn’t cross a certain threshold, then it doesn’t matter what took place,” Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, said.
Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma offered an interim step as a compromise. He said he’s calling on the White House and Bolton’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, to give the Senate access to Bolton’s manuscript, and he’s backed by Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Schumer dismissed that as “absurd” and said it wouldn’t substitute for putting questions to Bolton under oath.
Schumer said that if Republicans want to call witnesses like the Bidens, they are free to do so. But he also predicted GOP wouldn’t have 51 votes to do that because senators would be wary of turning the proceedings into a circus.
(Updates with Democrats questions in 12th paragraph. An earlier version corrected the name of Trump lawyer who responded to question)
--With assistance from Erik Wasson, Daniel Flatley, Mike Dorning and Laura Davison.
To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net;Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net;Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Advertisement