Sen. Ted Cruz said President Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate could last more than eight weeks if senators choose to call witnesses to testify.
The Texas Republican appeared on Fox News on Sunday to discuss impeachment after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi transmitted articles of impeachment to the chamber following weeks of stonewalling. Cruz said that if the Senate chooses to call witnesses in the trial, the proceedings could drag out for weeks or months.
“I think it’s certainly possible that this trial could last one to two weeks. On the other hand, if the Senate makes the decision to go down the road of additional witnesses, that could extend it to six to eight weeks or even longer,” Cruz told host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures.
Cruz has proposed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that, should the Senate call witnesses, testimony should be gathered in pairs from one Democrat-called witness and one Republican-called witness. Cruz called the idea “witness reciprocity.”
“If the prosecution gets a witness, the defense gets a witness. If the prosecution gets two, the defense gets two. That means, if the prosecution gets to call [former national security adviser] John Bolton, then the president gets to call Hunter Biden,” Cruz said. “The Democrats are terrified about seeing a witness like Hunter Biden testify because they don’t want to hear evidence of actual corruption.”
Pelosi delayed sending the impeachment articles to the Senate for weeks in a bid to force McConnell to submit to Democrats’ terms for the trial. Her strategy failed after McConnell threatened to dismiss the impeachment articles outright before they had even arrived on the Senate floor.
The speaker then transmitted the articles to the Senate on Wednesday after facing pressure within her party to move forward with the process. She named Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California to lead the House impeachment managers in prosecuting the case against Trump in the Senate.
