Senate Republicans will face a backlash from voters if they refuse to call witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial, Senate Democratic leaders warned Wednesday.
But Democrats aren’t interested in the GOP’s own witness wish list, which centers on testimony from former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
“If they don’t allow for any document production or any witnesses, there is going to be hell to pay back in each one of their states,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, warned the GOP Wednesday.
Republicans Tuesday blocked multiple attempts by Senate Democrats to subpoena White House documents and testimony from key administration officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
Democratic leaders, however, reject a trade-off proposal put forward by Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican of Texas, and some other lawmakers that would require Hunter Biden to testify about his lucrative job on a Ukrainian gas company board that he acquired while his father was in the White House.
“Witnesses should have something to do with direct knowledge of the charges against the president,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told reporters Wednesday. “We don’t need to have witnesses that have nothing to do with this that are trying to distract Americans from the truth.”
The Senate is days away from having to decide whether to call witnesses.
House impeachment managers Wednesday will begin a three-day presentation of their case against the president. The prosecution will be followed by Trump’s defense team for another three days. After that, senators will have 16 hours to ask questions in writing.
At the conclusion of the question period, senators will vote on whether to call witnesses at all.
Schumer said Democrats would also force additional votes on individual witnesses at that point, even if the body rejects extending the trial to call witnesses at all.
“We will certainly try to find ways, whether it’s the House managers who I imagine would want to do with themselves, or us, to get direct votes on each witness and document once again after the arguments are made,” Schumer said.
Democrats have acknowledged publicly that a witness trade-off would likely be necessary for them to secure the testimony of Bolton, Mulvaney, and other witnesses they seek.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, has said he is “fine” with calling Hunter Biden as a witness.
“I understand both sides get to call witnesses,” Brown said, but he added GOP senators told him “quietly” that Biden’s testimony would be “a distraction.”
Republicans argue Hunter Biden’s testimony would bolster Trump’s legal defense.
House Democrats impeached Trump on two articles charging him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. They allege Trump withheld security aid from Ukraine to pressure government officials to investigate Joe Biden, now Trump’s top political rival.
Trump said he sought Ukraine’s help investigating the Bidens to expose legitimate corruption.
Joe Biden, while serving as vice president, helped oust a Ukrainian prosecutor who was targeting a Ukrainian gas company that employed Hunter Biden.
Trump said he asked newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into the matter on a July 25 phone call that was later used to launch the House impeachment inquiry.
“The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, with largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place and largely the fact that we don’t want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,” Trump said in September, explaining the call.
But even Cruz, who proposed a deal that would summon both Bolton and Hunter Biden as witnesses at the impeachment trial, was dismissive of calling either of them to the trial.
House Democrats, Cruz said, should have more strenuously sought Bolton’s testimony before sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
“The House had an obligation to develop their case, and they failed miserably,” Cruz said.
Cruz argued that a vote to call witnesses would extend the Senate trial “for many weeks or even months.”
Instead, he told reporters, “What is likely is the Senate will vote to move to final judgment, and it will end in acquittal.”
