Sen. Rand Paul wants to streamline future impeachment trials, cut down on argument time, and allow more back-and-forth between the prosecution and defense.
The Kentucky Republican listed his grievances with impeachment trial rules in an interview with Axios published on Wednesday. Paul said that granting each side so much uninterrupted time to argue resulted in hours of repetitive arguments.
“If you ever do impeachment again, it’s got to be a lot shorter,” Paul said in his Senate office Monday. “After sitting through hundreds of hours, it seems like, of repetitive testimony, I think we should change the process.”
Democratic House managers “said the same thing over and over again, every 30 minutes for 24 hours,” he added.
Paul suggested a few changes to the rules that governed President Trump’s impeachment trial that would streamline the process and offer more chances for the two sides to respond to each other’s arguments. The changes would liven up debate and offer senators something more substantive to watch.
“I think eight hours would be plenty for each side, and then I would alternate every hour — go back-and-forth, so you don’t hear 24 hours of the same people saying the same damn thing over and over again,” Paul said, noting that just 30 minutes are given to each side during oral arguments in the Supreme Court.
A handful of senators appeared bored throughout the impeachment trial and resorted to using fidget spinners, doodling, or reading to distract themselves.
“People gave some of us a hard time for not paying attention every second of 100 hours. But they … were giving speeches over and over and over again, and they really weren’t trying to get our votes. They knew they weren’t getting any new votes,” Paul said.
