Democrats’ big shift in Trump’s second impeachment
Senate Democrats aren’t pressing hard to include witnesses in the upcoming trial.
Democrats made a push for witnesses central to President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial. But not this time.
Senate Democrats are making it clear they’re taking a different approach than they did for Trump’s infamous Ukraine call. Now, they say their experience as witnesses to the Jan. 6 insurrection is enough.
“This is based on a public crime,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “His intent was unhidden and so I think there’s a danger as there always is for a trial lawyer and prosecutor to over-try, to add more witnesses that prove the obvious.”
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) compared the situations this way: “Imagine if the Ukraine call were streamed on the Internet.” And given how dug in most members of both parties are, he observed: “It’s not clear to me that there is any evidence that will change anyone’s mind.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are still haggling over how to organize the trial, so it’s not even certain whether the Senate will vote on the witness question at all, or if someone will force one at the start of the trial.
But for the moment, the trial is not expected to last more than a week, though that could change if witnesses are brought in. Some Senate Democrats have called for a prompt trial, citing other priorities like coronavirus relief and the extreme unlikelihood that 17 Republicans will join them in convicting Trump. Meanwhile, most Republicans are coalescing around the argument that impeaching a former president is unconstitutional.
“Both sides would kind of like to wrap it up fairly quickly,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “If they want to call witnesses, that prolongs it for sure. And I think you’re talking about pushing into the next week, the week after that perhaps, because then both sides will have that option available to them.”
Senate Democrats, however, will largely defer to the House impeachment managers on the question of witnesses. The managers have yet to publicly say whether they want to bring in outside witnesses to make their case against Trump, or whether they will simply rely on video and public comments from the former president as evidence. Lead impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called on Trump Thursday to testify but the ex-president rejected the request.
Whether the House impeachment managers push the Senate to hold a vote to subpoena Trump remains to be seen. But some Senate Democrats are already suggesting they don’t have much interest in hearing from him.