President Trump’s impeachment trial will open Tuesday afternoon in the Senate with a major fight looming over whether to call witnesses whose testimony could be damaging to both political parties.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not disclosed the details of a resolution that senators must vote on to set the terms of the trial. McConnell has described the measure broadly as one that excludes an agreement on witness testimony until later in the trial, after House impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team have presented their arguments. McConnell said the resolution mirrors one used in the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton.
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But Senate Democrats said they’ll push for witness testimony sooner, perhaps on Day One of the trial.
Democrats want the Senate to summon former national security adviser John Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and two other administration officials, as well as White House documents related to President Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Democrats believe the witnesses and documents would bolster their claim that the president sought to improperly influence the 2020 election and damage national security by blocking security aid to Ukraine. Trump wanted Zelensky to investigate Vice President Joe Biden, now his top political rival.
“We are going to demand votes — yes or no, up or down — on the four witnesses we’ve requested and on the three sets of documents we’ve requested,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on Sunday. “We will force those votes.”
Republicans are threatening to call their own witnesses, and the list includes presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who took a lucrative job with a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president.
Joe Biden bragged about forcing out a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma Holdings, the gas company that hired Hunter Biden.
Republicans say Hunter Biden’s testimony would validate Trump’s effort to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
“If we call one witness, we’re going to call all the witnesses,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said on Fox News Sunday. “There’s not going to be a process where the Democrats get their witnesses and the president gets shut out.”
Graham said he supports calling no witnesses.
The House should have tried to force Bolton to testify in their impeachment proceedings by issuing a subpoena and taking the dispute to court, he said.
“What they’re doing here is, they’ve got a railroad job in the House, and they’re trying to fix it in the Senate, and I’m not going to be part of that,” Graham said.
Republicans are all but guaranteed to reject witnesses until after the impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team present their cases, so it is unlikely Schumer will win if he forces votes on witnesses at the opening of the trial.
But a handful of Republicans said they are open to calling witnesses and would decide later in the trial.
Democrats control 47 votes, so at least four Republicans would have to vote in favor of witnesses to garner a 51-vote majority.
Democrats say new “explosive” evidence has surfaced since the House impeached Trump on Dec. 18 and that the information bolsters their argument for additional witness testimony.
Among the evidence is a trove of documents from Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who has been charged with violating campaign finance laws. Parnas, Schumer said, was someone “totally around the whole operation who was certain the president knew about it and directed it.”
Schumer also pointed to a new report from the Government Accountability Office that determined it was illegal for the Trump administration to block much of the $391 million in security aid from Ukraine temporarily.
“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 said.
If senators decided to call witnesses, it could extend the trial for weeks.
Trump’s legal team is seeking a fast dismissal of the case, which would require 51 votes.
Republicans control 53 votes, but senior GOP senators said an immediate dismissal is out of the question.
“There is literally no sentiment in the Republican conference for the motion to dismiss,” McConnell said after meeting privately with GOP senators on Tuesday. “Our members feel we have an obligation to listen to the arguments.”
A motion to dismiss would likely come up after the impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers argue their cases.
“We are confident the president’s rights will be protected, including the potential for a motion to dismiss,” Trump’s congressional liaison, Legislative Affairs Director Eric Ueland, said.
