Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer promised to “force votes on witnesses and documents” in President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.
Questioning why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was “being so secretive about his proposal,” the New York Democrat said he was prepared to force the votes when the trial begins on Tuesday while speaking to reporters Sunday.
“We have the right to do it, we are going to do it, and we are going to do it at the beginning on Tuesday if leader McConnell doesn’t call for these witnesses in his proposal,” he said. “Make no mistake about it.”
He continued: “It will be up to four Republicans to side with the Constitution, to side with our Democracy, to side with rule of law. And not side, in blind obeisance, to President Trump and his desire to suppress the truth. Because in my judgment, he probably thinks he’s guilty.”
Schumer also claimed McConnell wants to “rush” through a trial with no witnesses because he’s “afraid” of what the country might learn about the president during the proceedings. McConnell has not yet made his plan for the impeachment trial public, and Schumer said he had not seen it in private either.
Republican leaders in the Senate have expressed a desire for a quick trial with no witnesses, but some have entertained the idea of “witness reciprocity” in which Republicans would get to call a witness for every witness secured by Democrats. Sen. Rand Paul went as far as to threaten to force a vote on hearing testimony from Hunter Biden if his GOP colleagues agree to the Democrats’ witness request list.
Trump’s legal team laid out its strategy for the trial on Saturday, which includes accusing Democrats of using impeachment to overturn the 2016 presidential election. Alan Dershowitz, who joined the team on Friday, said he would argue that abuse of power, one of the two articles of impeachment against the president, is not an impeachable offense.