Wall Street Journal: McConnell Says GOP Doesn’t Have Votes to Block Impeachment Witnesses
Senate majority leader makes remarks in private Republican meeting.
WASHINGTON—Republican leaders said they don’t currently have enough votes to block witnesses in President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, people familiar with the matter said, after his legal team concluded its efforts to counter Democrats’ charges that the president abused power and obstructed Congress.
On the third and final day of presentations by the Trump legal team, lawyers tried to cast doubts on the importance and credibility of allegations by former national security adviser John Bolton about the president’s motives for freezing aid to Ukraine.
But at a meeting of all Republican senators late Tuesday, GOP leaders told their conference that they don’t currently have the votes to prevent witnesses from being called, people familiar with the matter said. Republicans had hoped to wrap up the trial with an acquittal of the president by this week, but Democrats have said Mr. Bolton should appear under oath to offer a firsthand account of the president’s motivations for freezing aid to Ukraine—a matter at the heart of the impeachment case.
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Update #1: GOP doesn’t have votes to block witnesses, McConnell says (AP)
Update #2: Graham: There will be 51 GOP votes to call Bidens, whistleblower (The Hill)
WNU Editor: As someone who lives outside the U.S., I must admit that American justice is strange. I never knew that you can have a trial where the witnesses are negotiated and voted upon by the jurors. And the punchline is that I doubt that the witnesses that the Democrats want to call will make a tangible difference in this impeachment trial. The phone call transcript/summary was released months ago, Ukraine did get their aid, and Ukrainian officials have made it clear that they never felt pressured from the White House. So what can these witnesses add? That they heard President Trump voice a desire or an opinion to impose conditions on Ukraine aid, but in the end did not follow through for reasons that only President Trump knows. Can an opinion be submitted as evidence? Is the President's thoughts an impeachable offence? For the Democrats and many others, it appears the answer is yes.
As to what do I expect in the coming days, Republican Senator McConnell is a man who now expects a handfull of Republicans will support some of the witnesses that the Democrats want. If true, this trial will then run into next week (and probably beyond), escalate calls for more investigations, and bog the Senate into a process that will satisfy no one. The State of the Union address will also be delayed.
If witnesses are to be called, I would like to hear from the "whistle-blower", former Vice-President Biden, and his son Hunter Biden. The Biden's testimony will shed a clearer light on why President Trump felt motivated to investigate their involvement in Ukraine, and the "whistle-blower's" testimony will clarify why he felt this phone call was "dangerous" and needed to be reported, thereby setting in motion to where we are today. Since the Republicans have the majority in the Senate, they can do whatever they want. And if they want to placate their Democrat counterparts and the witnesses that they want, so be it. But if this is the course that some Republican Senators want to proceed, my suggestion to them is that they better not limit or put barriers to the defence team when they make their call for witnesses. Because if they do, you can take this to the bank, the Republican base will revolt against them.
11 comments:
McConnell is short the no-witness votes right now. Betcha he has them by Friday.
Democrats delay the State of the Union and they might as well hang it up as a party, because they will be thru.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/politics/energy-department-ukraine-rick-perry-documents/index.html
Blow my wisol lier
Has regime change happened in Iran yet?
Trump promised to withdraw from the bad nuclear deal. He did not promise to replace the illegal Iranian regime.
Regime change in Iran is a real possibility. But since it would be done through sanctions it is necessarily a slow process.
That is the avaricious Ayatollahs will play ever card. Meaning they will spend all their money until it runs out. It is running out about now. After that they will start rationing and shooting people, who think the ayatollahs should not be running the country much less a lemonade stand.
The ayatollahs are not meeting many payrolls now and they are so stubborn they refuse help with water management.
They are running out of money and water. People who are starving and needing water are not afraid of bullet or the ayatollah's IRGC henchmonkeys.
The Ayatollahs are banking on impeachment too.
Why would you want to block witnesses if your guy is innocent?
All crazy political theater....GET BACK TO WORK, And quit wasting our tax dollars!!
"Why would you want to block witnesses if your guy is innocent?" First of all Trump isn't "my guy." Ordinary Americans don't view things that way. They look at it through the lives of their families and whose policies are best to provide opportunities for their advancement and that of their families as well as a safe and secure environment that makes such things possible. This is the prism through which things are viewed.
"Your guy" or "their guy" are the way partisan political hacks and those who put their own gain above the interests of their countrymen and women view things. People with this type of world view have no shame and will betray us in a heartbeat.
Now as to why one would seek to block witnesses even though they are innocent There may be a number of reasons why this may be done. In the current case, two words come to mind "executive privilege." Trump explained this quite well in an interview. Essentially if close advisors are forced to testify this runs the risks of leaking details of intimate conversations between POTUS and his teams in areas of foreign policy and thoughts on foreign leaders and their actions. Such actions run a significant risk of hamstringing POTUS in his conduct of foreign policy. To make matters worse, setting such a precedent would likely reverberate far beyond Trump's terms on office undermining the ability of future Presidents to operate in the foreign policy arena. This is why executive privilege for a POTUS has been understood for centuries. Trump was absolutely prudent and correct to invoke this.
While there likely are times and places where such executive privilege should be set aside, the huge costs to the nation's security will need to be carefully weighed. If the courts are asked to decide it, they need to be very prudent and absent something extraordinary they should decide in favor of executive privilege.
While a full testimony of all witnesses will exonerate POTUS, the mid to long range costs to American national security render such an action as imprudent Furthermore, as I point out elsewhere, even if all charges against POTUS are correct, he acted on American interests. Therefore there's no crime anyway. As such, "witnesses" seem to me to be a sideshow and an attempt to distract.
This treatment of John Bolton like he's something akin to a cross between a highly revered leader of great accomplishment and a rock star is bizarre. The most reliable witnesses here will be Trump himself and top Ukrainian officials. JB is not even a reliable witness!!
1.)He was disgruntled. Even before he was fired this was well known. It was clear POTUS wanted to go in a different. His displeasure had been voiced through the media grapevine for weeks prior to his dismissal. Any investigator worth their salt understands we do not take the testimony of disgruntled ex employees on its own. Such testimony is treated with extreme skepticism absent other independent evidence that would corroborate it. 2.)As it was well known that his approaches had fallen into disfavor with POTUS for sometime, firing was inevitable. In all likelihood he lied about the nature of his departure when he said he resigned This raises significant trust issues as to the reliability of his testimony. 3.) He is one approach person. The only tool he has is a hammer. Not all jobs can be completed with a hammer. People who think such one dimensionally have trouble in the real world and can generally only thrive in government or academia where their actions don't have consequences. Such people who have the tendencies and live in the real world adapt in order to survive. JB is in government he didn't need to. With that said such people are more likely to become mentally I'll than average. 4.)The people who are oohing aahing over him now and treating him and his testimony like he is the best thing since the invention of warm bread never really liked him before. His apparent inability to grasp this lends credence to the thought that he may be mentally ill.
Essentially this isn't even a reliable witness. To treat him with such holy reverence as the Democrats, the media, and some Republicans are is utterly bizarre. I'd say he and his testimony aren't worth the associated with it of sacrificing essential executive privilege just so we can the testimony of a witness whose reliability is questionable at best.
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