Live political reporting continues in Friday’s blog:
Summary
- The Q&A portion of the Senate impeachment trial concluded, with House Democrats making the case to hear witness testimony and Trump’s legal team arguing for a swift acquittal.
- Senator Lamar Alexander — who was considered a swing Republican — announced he intends to vote ‘no’ on witnesses. Republicans Mitt Romney and Susan Collins said they’ll vote in favor of considering additional witnesses, and Lisa Murkowski is undecided.
- Despite a couple of defectors, it seems the Republicans have lined up the votes to block additional testimony and evidence, and are headed for acquittal.
- As Senators considered his fate, Donald Trump raged against what he characterized as a “deranged witch hunt hoax” at a campaign rally in Iowa.
- The trial will reconvene at 1pm ET tomorrow.
Updated
Even if he’s not called to testify before the senate John Bolton could take matters into his own hands, and present his account in a public interview. He’s unlikely to do so — but at an event earlier today, the former national security adviser praised officials who did testify, even as he hesitated.
Speaking at a private event in Texas, Bolton reportedly praised officials who testified in the House impeachment investigation.
Fiona Hill, Tim Morrison, Alex Vindman, Bill Taylor, and Marie Yovanovitch “acted in the best interest of the country as they saw it and consistent to what they thought our policies were,” Bolton said, according to KXAN Austin.
Senator Lamar Alexander — who was considered a key swing vote — decides ‘no’ on witnesses
“There is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the U.S. Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense,” Alexander said in a statement.
The Tennessee Republican added: “It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation.”
“But the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.”
Alexander’s ‘no’ vote means it’s highly unlikely that the Senate would hear additional testimony. Donald Trump could be acquitted as soon as tomorrow.
Republican senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine have indicated that they’d like to hear from witnesses. But even if Lisa Murkowski, the remaining undecided Republican senator from Alaska, joins them, the senators will likely end up with a tie. Although there is precedent for the Chief Justice to break such a time, John Roberts, who has taken a hands-off approach in the trial so far, is unlikely to interfere.
Updated
Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican of Maine has issued a statement saying she will “vote in support of the motion to allow witnesses and documents to be subpoenaed”
I will vote in support of the motion to allow witnesses and documents to be subpoenaed. My full statement: https://t.co/VuhZv6CO5e pic.twitter.com/LhQlnvPaoc
— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) January 31, 2020
Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska who could be a swing vote on the question of witnesses, has said she’s going to “reflect” and decide whether she needs to “hear more”.
Murkowski: "I am going to go reflect on what I have heard, re-read my notes and decide whether I need to hear more."
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) January 31, 2020
Senator Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, said she’s decided to vote for witnesses.
And Lamar Alexander, a Republican senator from Tennessee, is expected to announce his position on witnesses shortly.
Trial adjourns for the night
The Senate trial has adjourned for the day. Responding to a last question, walked up to the Chief Justice personally by Senator Amy Klobuchar, House manager Jerrold Nadler made one last plea to Senators to call witnesses.
The president’s lawyers know that witness testimony “will only strengthen the case” against the president, Nadler said.
“The truth can be bolstered,” Nadler said.
GOP Senators suggest Bolton's testimony 'would add nothing to this case'
Republican Senators Graham, Cruz, Portman, Alexander, Toomey, Sullivan and Murkowski (who is still undecided on witnesses) asked the Trump legal team: “Isn’t it true that the allegations would still not rise to the level of an impeachable offense and would add nothing to this case” even if Bolton were to testify.
Although Trump’s lawyers have been distancing themselves from Alan Dershowitz’s earlier argument that nothing short of a criminal act is impeachable, White House counsel Patrick Philbin more or less agreed — regardless of what Bolton says, Trump shouldn’t be impeached.
“Even if Ambassador Bolton would testify to that, even if you assumed it were true, there is no impeachable offense stated in the articles of impeachment,” he said.
House manager Adam Schiff, responding at the request of Democratic senators, said “I don’t think there’s really much question” about what Bolton would say. There’s also little question over what Donald Trump has done wrong, Schiff added.
What the president’s defense is saying, Schiff said, is that “the president of the United States can withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in aid that we appropriated, can do so in violation of the law, can do so to coerce an ally in order to help him cheat in an election” but “too bad, there’s nothing you can do”.
Senator Lisa Murkowski’s cosign on the leading question from Republican senators may be a sign that despite some vacillation, she’ll ultimately vote against hearing witness testimony.
Updated
The state department has advised against all travel to China due to coronavirus outbreak
“Those currently in China should consider departing using commercial means. The Department of State has requested that all non-essential U.S. government personnel defer travel to China in light of the novel coronavirus,” the state department advised.
Follow the Guardian’s live coverage of the coronavirus outbreak, which the World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency.
Updated
Schiff says the White House Counsel saying ‘if their case is so good, let them try it without witnesses,’ is not a valid argument: “That wouldn’t fly before any judge in America and it shouldn’t fly here either” https://t.co/kfaqEJJajc pic.twitter.com/4kaDXyD4o2
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 31, 2020
With the trial back in session, House manager Adam Schiff said that the Trump team’s justification for not calling witnesses makes no sense.
The argument that “‘if their case is so good, let them try it without witnesses,’ is not a valid argument,” Schiff said. “That wouldn’t fly before any judge in America and it shouldn’t fly here either.”
The Trump administration made clear that it wouldn’t cooperate with Congress’ impeachment investigation, Schiff said — making a case for the Senate to get the evidence the House wasn’t able to.
Updated
The Senate has taken a super-quick break.
9:13pm: Senate trial now in a 5-minute break. pic.twitter.com/uXPZGPU5ys
— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) January 31, 2020
Donald Trump: 'We’re having probably the best years we’ve ever had'
Trump: Democrats are "obsessed with a deranged witch hunt hoax. We're having probably the best years we've ever had in the history of our country. And I just got impeached!"
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 31, 2020
Impeachment was one of the things on the president’s mind as he addressed the crowd at his campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa.
Democrats are “obsessed with a deranged witch hunt hoax” he said. “We’re having probably the best years we’ve ever had in the history of our country. And I just got impeached!” Trump derided “Crazy Schiff” and “Shifty Schiff” before reassuring the crowd that his poll numbers were up and Republicans would retake the House in November.
President Trump: "You know we're having probably the best years that we've ever had in history of our country and I just got impeached!"
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 31, 2020
Also: "It's a happy period, because we call this Impeachment Lite." pic.twitter.com/sCKAp59rY3
He shared a number of his other grievances against the Democrats, including their environmental policies which he said would “kill our cows”.
“That means you’re next,” he told his Iowan supporters.
He also said that “through a remittance, illegal aliens from Mexico are going to pay for the wall,” without offering any other information about what that means or how it would work.
“You’d better let me win!” he yelled out to the crowd.
Updated
If you had “Benghazi” on your impeachment bingo card, rejoice.
GOP senators Hawley, Sasse and Barrasso raised the Benghazi final report and asked Trump’s defense: “Does President Trump owe more compliance than other presidents did?”
White House counsel Jay Sekulow upheld Trump’s claim to “executive privilege”.
The idea that “absolute immunity can’t possibly exist” is ridiculous, Sekulow said, making the puzzling argument that scores of past presidents have had immunity. Cutting a deal on witnesses may make “everyone happy”, he continued, but “it doesn’t make the constitution happy”.
It’s worth noting that the past dozen Senate impeachment trials have called witnesses.
Updated
Lisa Murkowski, an undecided Republican senator, asks: ‘Why should this body not call Ambassador Bolton?’
Senator Lisa Murkowski, a potential Republican swing vote on the question of witnesses, just posed an pointed question. Noting the reporting on former national security advisor John Bolton’s unpublished book, she asked: “Why should this body not call Ambassador Bolton?”
“The reporting on Ambassador Bolton’s book suggests the President told Bolton directly that the aid would not be released until Ukraine announced the investigations the President desired,” she wrote. “This dispute about material facts weighs in favor of calling additional witnesses with direct knowledge.”
The president’s counsel responded that calling witnesses in this case would set a bad precedent for future impeachment trials. “I think that’s very damaging for the future of this institution,” said Patrick Philbin.
Philbin reiterated an assertion that if the House wanted to hear from Bolton, they should have worked harder to get his testimony. “It will do grave damage to this body as an institution to say that the proceedings in the House don’t have to really be complete,” he said.
Murkowski, a senator of Alaska, has maintained that she’s undecided on witnesses. During the dinner break, she was seen huddling with Lamar Alexander, another Republican who may vote in favor of witnesses.
Updated
The House of Representatives adjourned earlier today. Their next vote is scheduled for Tuesday, before Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.
Trump may be acquitted by then, or his trial could be ongoing as he addresses Congress in a televised address.
In other House news, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ dog, Deco, has made his Congressional debut.
The Gentlepuppy of New York’s 14th Congressional District is now recognized 🐶 https://t.co/9wb1aruOMe
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 30, 2020
Senator Lamar Alexander, a potential Republican swing vote on witnesses, was seen passing a note to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, launching even more speculation on what Alexander will decide.
Sen. Lamar Alexander just had a Senate page deliver a note to Sen. Mitch McConnell. McConnell let it sit on his lap for a couple minutes, then read it and stuffed it in his suit jacket pocket. McConnell’s face is tough to read. But he didn’t look in Alexander’s direction.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) January 31, 2020
Earlier, Lamar was spotted reading the book“Impeachment: An American History” in the Senate chamber. The book details the impeachment cases against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
Updated
The Senate is back in session, and House managers and Trump lawyers are back to fielding questions.
GOP Senators found a new way to raise the topic of the Bidens and Burisma: “Do you agree with John Kerry’s stepson that Hunter Biden working with Burisma was unacceptable?”
House manager Adam Schiff dismissed the “cooky” conspiracy theory.
If you missed where John Kerry’s stepson comes in, the Washington Post wrote a good explainer:
When then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son joined the board of an obscure Ukrainian gas company half a decade ago, it was a stunning coup for its owner, a former Ukrainian minister working to remake the company’s image as he faced a money-laundering investigation.
For Hunter Biden, the job came with risks: Ukraine was in the throes of political upheaval, and there was building scrutiny of former government officials profiting in the lucrative gas industry. His father was the face of the Obama administration’s effort to get Ukraine to crack down on corruption.
The region was so unsettled that one of Hunter Biden’s investment firm partners at the time — former secretary of state John F. Kerry’s stepson — believed that joining the board of Burisma Holdings was a bad idea and ended his business relationship with Biden and another partner, his spokesman told The Washington Post.
Updated
Schiff reassures senators concerned about 'endless delays'
Before the break, House manager Adam Schiff even more directly reassured senators concerned about “endless delays”, once again suggesting a one-week period for deposition and “limited” time for witnesses. Chief Justice John Roberts could quickly resolve disputes, he said.
Lawmakers and journalists have been speculating all day about how the upcoming votes on witnesses could fall. Republican Senators Lamar Alexander and Lisa Murkowski were spotted together during the dinner break. Both are potential swing votes, and have told reporters they remain undecided.
Alexander is expected to announce his position tonight.
Key swing vote Sen. Lamar Alexander told me he's going to announce his decision on witnesses TONIGHT, a decision that will make clear whether the Senate trial will come to a swift conclusion or if it will lead to a new phase over witnesses and documents.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 31, 2020
Updated
Trial adjourns for dinner, as crowds anticipate Trump at Iowa rally
The trial has adjourned for a 45-minute dinner break. When the senators return, they have about 2 hours and 45 minutes remaining to pose questions. So far, senators have asked nearly 150 questions.
As the Senate mulls whether to call witnesses in the impeachment trial or swiftly acquit the president, crowds in Iowa are awaiting Donald Trump, who will soon speak at a campaign rally in Des Moines.
All the attention may be on the Democrats on Monday, but Trump has center stage in Des Moines tonight, with a packed house at Drake University’s basketball stadium. pic.twitter.com/SrSKKErILN
— Anthony Zurcher (@awzurcher) January 30, 2020
Updated
.@RepJeffries "This is the Senate. This is America's most exclusive political club. This is the world's greatest deliberative body and all you offer us is conspiracy theories because you can't address the facts in this case, that the President corruptly abused his power..." pic.twitter.com/D7WuAbizcE
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 30, 2020
Responding to a question from Republican senators on whether the Steele dossier would be considered foreign interference in US elections, House manager Hakeem Jeffries said that Trump’s defense team had raised “conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory”.
“We’ve heard about the deep state conspiracy theory. We’ve heard about the ‘Adam Schiff is the root of all evil’ conspiracy theory. We’ve heard about the Burisma conspiracy theory. We’ve head about the Crowdstike conspiracy theory. We’ve heard about the whistleblower conspiracy theory,” he said. “It’s hard to keep track.”
Updated
Virginia’s Democrat-led House today approved several gun control measures, despite the backlash of gun-rights activists who flooded the state Capitol last week to protest the measures.
Though the state’s Senate is also controlled by Democrats and has already passed some similar measures, it is more conservative than the House and may vote down some of the gun control policy.
The Guardian’s Lois Beckett reported on the protests in Virginia last week:
The presence of thousands of armed citizens outside the elegant state capitol building was meant as a warning: Democrats, not just in Virginia but nationwide, should back off attempts to pass sweeping gun control laws.
Early in the morning, two men pushed through the packed crowd in bright red T-shirts that read “Make Politicians Afraid Again”, with the image of a military-style rifle underneath.
Conservative pundits were touting the non-violent gathering as evidence that law-abiding gun owners are not a threat to the public despite high numbers of daily shooting deaths.
Shannon Watts, the founder of gun control group Moms Demand Action, condemned the rally.
“Armed insurrectionists who threaten violence and lawlessness if they don’t get their way don’t represent the majority of Virginians,” she said.
Responding to White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s assertion that ‘puritanical rage’ is driving the impeachment, House manager Adam Schiff responded that his characterization as a “Puritan who speaks in dulcet tones” is the nicest thing Trump defenders have said about him.
“I wouldn’t describe myself as a Puritan, but I do believe in right and wrong,” Schiff said. Denying witnesses and evidence in the trial “will just further a cynicism” about government “that’s corrosive”.
As the question-and-answer session continues, it seems that some senators are trying to multi-task. Senator James Risch, a Republican of Idaho, is sorting out his finances.
.@SenatorRisch apparently still has a checkbook. And he is balancing it on the Senate floor right now.
— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) January 30, 2020
Report: Donald Trump's budget proposal maintains aid for Ukraine
Donald Trump’s budget proposal will advocate for maintaining the current levels of foreign assistance to Ukraine, Politico reports, breaking from previous budget blueprints, in which he proposed cutting tens of millions of dollars in assistance.
As the Senate considers whether his handling of Ukraine aid last year is an impeachable offense, it seems the president is playing things safe by maintaining stable levels of aid.
Trump and his supporters have maintained that he held back Congressionally-allocated aid to Ukraine because he wanted other allies to pay a higher share.
Updated
Evening summary
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff proposed limiting witness depositions in the Senate trial to one week, mirroring Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.
- Senate Republicans appear increasingly confident they will be able to block witness testimony in the trial, which will come up for a vote tomorrow.
- Some Democratic senators are calling on Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts to break a tie on witness testimony if the final vote is 50-50, but it seems unlikely Roberts would take such a step.
- Roberts declined to read a question from Rand Paul that named the alleged whistleblower whose complaint sparked the impeachment inquiry. But a group of Republican senators later submitted a similar question with the alleged whistleblower’s name removed, which Roberts did read.
- House speaker Nancy Pelosi said an acquittal would not vindicate Trump if the trial did not include witness testimony, an argument that will likely be repeated by many Democrats in the days to come.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Ron Johnson submitted a question that was clearly based off Rand Paul’s earlier question, with the name of the alleged whistleblower deleted.
With the alleged whistleblower’s name removed, Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts read the question, which focused on a claim circulating in right-wing circles that the alleged whistleblower conspired with Democratic staffers of the House intelligence committee to take down Trump.
Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff, who also chairs the intelligence committee, responded by angrily denouncing attacks on the panel’s staffers.
“I will not dignify those smears on my staff by giving them any credence whatsoever,” Schiff said, calling the attacks “disgraceful.”
Schiff also emphasized the importance of protecting the whistleblower’s identity. “Whistleblowers are a unique and vital resource for the intelligence community,” Schiff said.
Updated
Republican senator Lisa Murkowski and Democratic senator Brian Schatz posed the second bipartisan question of the day, asking where to draw the line between acceptable political actions and impeachable political actions.
Another bipartisan question: Murkowski and Schatz ask both sides about the line between permissible political actions and impeachable actions. Trump attorney Philbin: “There’s almost no way to parcel out which percentage is one motive and which percentage is another motive.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 30, 2020
Schiff proposes limiting witness testimony to one week
Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff has proposed limiting depositions of witnesses in the Senate trial to one week, mirroring Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.
The proposal appears meant to quell concerns about the trial stretching on for months and to win over enough Republican senators to have the Democratic proposal for witness testimony approved.
Schiff said the Senate could return to its normal business during the week, ensuring the trial did not distract from the needs of the country.
The manager concluded by arguing that such due dilligence was possible and necessary. “I think we can; I think we should; I think we must,” Schiff said.
Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin argued that Rudy Giulaini was not carrying out US foreign policy in Ukraine but was rather considered a mere source of “information” about the president’s thinking.
However, the White House’s own memo on Trump’s July phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy clearly shows the US president asking his Ukrainian counterpart to confer with Giuliani about potential investigations of corruption.
PHILBIN: "The first is I just want to make clear that there was no conduct of foreign policy being carried on here by a private person. "
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) January 30, 2020
THE PRESIDENT to Zelensky on July 25: pic.twitter.com/UiZ1Smp4d7
A bipartisan group of senators -- Democrats Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin and Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski -- have asked a question that appears to center on Rudy Giuliani.
The four senators asked Trump’s lawyers if the president could assure the American people that he would not deploy private citizens to carry out foreign policy unless sanctioned by the State Department.
Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin responded by pushing back against the notion that Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, was carrying out US foreign policy, insisting he was only a source of “information” about Trump’s thinking.
Philbin went on to argue the president was acting “within his authority” under Article II of the Constitution in regards to Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine.
The Senate impeachment trial has resumed, and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin is currently taking a question from Republican senators about how many witnesses and documents have been presented to the Senate.
Trump’s Senate allies have taken to arguing in recent days that the impeachment trial does not need to include witness testimony because the public hearings of the House impeachment inquiry included a number of witnesses.
In some non-impeachment news as the Senate trial is in recess, former president Jimmy Carter has released a statement criticizing the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan released by the Trump administration earlier this week.
Carter, who helped to broker the Camp David Accords in 1978, said in a statement, “The new U.S. plan undercuts prospects for a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians. If implemented, the plan will doom the only viable solution to this long-running conflict, the two-state solution.”
In a White House ceremony on Tuesday, Trump unveiled the administration’s proposal, which he called a “realistic two-state solution.”
But Palestinian officials quickly made clear that they had no intention of agreeing to the terms of the proposal. “We say a thousand times: No, no and no to the ‘deal of the century,’” said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has called for a recess, and the impeachment trial will resume in about 20 minutes.
Susan Collins, one of the Republican senators considered most likely to support witness testimony, has posed another question.
The question -- which came from Collins, Mike Crapo, Roy Blunt and Marco Rubio -- focused on whether there were any legitimate circumstances under which a president can ask a foreign country to investigate a US citizen, including a political rival.
Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff took the question first, and he said it was hard for him to imagine such circumstances, but Schiff emphasized that Trump’s approach to requesting the investigations was undeniably inappropirate.
Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin then took the podium and chose to push back against the notion that Trump requested an investigation of Joe Biden. Philbin pointed senators to the White House memo on Trump’s July phone call with the Ukrainian president, which included Trump asking for a “favor” and going on to discuss possible corruption investigations.
As the question-and-answer session of the impeachment trial continues, Trump is tweeting out birthday wishes to two Republican congressmen who fiercely defended him during the House impeachment inquiry.
Happy birthday today to two of the very best in Congress—@RepMikeJohnson (age 48) and @RepLeeZeldin (age 40—big one!). Two Great American Patriots!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2020
Johnson and Zeldin are both members of the White House impeachment defense team, which has been advising the president’s legal team during the Senate trial.
It’s looking like the final vote on witness testimony could be 50-50, if only three Republicans -- most likely Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski -- support the Democratic proposal.
Some Democrats are urging Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts to split the tie if the final vote is 50-50, but the likeliness of such an extraordinary move seems low.
However, there is precedent -- dating back to the 1868 impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson -- of a Supreme Court chief justice splitting a tie vote.
With lots of talk about a possible 50-50 tie vote on witnesses, I went back to the Andrew Johnson impeachment trial - and I did find where the Chief Justice broke a tie vote pic.twitter.com/ddtyETnI56
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) January 30, 2020
Similar to yesterday, many questions from Democratic and Republican senators are clearly designed as opportunities for their allies to criticize the opposing team.
The kabuki nature of the Q&A is getting ... tiresome. And I can't imagine reporters are the only ones feeling thus.@SenRickScott asks Q about why House tilted process against WH -- and asks WH the question.
— Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) January 30, 2020
"I don't KNOW why they did that," says Cipollone.
You don't say!
As another example, lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff is currently taking a question from Democratic senator Ron Wyden asking how Trump’s actions toward Ukraine could possibly be considered anything other than an abuse of power.
It is Donald Trump’s habitual practice to accuse political opponents of misconduct he excels at, from self-dealing to the use of nasty language to telling lies.
At the impeachment trial Trump’s legal team has invented a twist on the projection tactic, taking the charges against the president and seeking to turn them back on the impeachment managers, using the precise language of the prosecution.
Thus Trump’s lawyers have accused the House of Representatives of abusing its power by pursuing impeachment and of obstructing justice by running the impeachment process in a way the White House objects to.
In one provocative example, lawyers for Trump have taken on the Senate floor to accusing House managers of engaging in “election interference” by advancing a process that could take Trump’s name off the ballot in 2020.
The first article of impeachment charges Trump with abuse of power for soliciting foreign interference in a US election.
The House team has responded simply that the impeachment clause in the Constitution gives no berth to the political calendar and that by nature impeachments involving charges relating to the conduct of political activity fall close to elections because that’s when political activity happens.
“This is why the founders did not put a requirement that a president can only be impeached in the first term” in the Constitution, lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff said Thursday. “If it were the intention of the framers to say that a president cannot be impeached in an election year, they would have said so. They did not, for a very good reason: there were concerned about presidents who might try to cheat in an election.”
Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff pointed out that a Justice Department lawyer said in court earlier today that the House can impeach a president for defying congressional subpoenas, sharply contradicting Trump’s lawyers in the impeachment trial.
Schiff’s answer elicited laughter from the senators sitting in the chamber where the trial is being held.
CNN has more on the case that Schiff referenced:
Asked by a federal judge what the House can do to enforce its subpoenas, Justice Department lawyer James Burnham said without hesitation that the House can use its impeachment powers, among other options, like withholding appropriations.
Trump is fighting charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress for ordering his aides to defy subpoenas. They’ve argued in the Senate that the obstruction charge is preposterous, because Trump was lawfully protecting the executive branch in a dispute with Congress over documents and testimony. ...
The topic came up in a court hearing about the 2020 census. The House Oversight Committee sued the Justice Department and Commerce Department in November, asking a judge to enforce its subpoenas for documents. The case revolves around the controversial and ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the census.
Senate Democrats posed a question to both the impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers about who was paying for Rudy Giuliani’s travel and expenses as the president’s personal lawyer pressured Ukraine to launch investigations of Joe Biden and the 2016 election.
Neither the managers nor Trump’s lawyers answered the question, but lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff used the question to rail against Giuliani’s efforts.
Schiff said Giuliani was focused on a “domestic, corrupt” task while speaking to Ukrainian officials, and he warned that the entire country was “paying the freight for it.”
Impeachment manager Hakeem Jeffries warned the president’s lawyers are presenting arguments that could invite future foreign interference in US elections.
“This is not a banana republic,” Jeffries said. “It’s the democratic republic of the United States of America.”
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: “This is not a Banana Republic. It's the Democratic Republic of the United States of America.” https://t.co/NSt9F2Mg3D pic.twitter.com/lMU8Lihhvv
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 30, 2020
One of Trump’s lawyers, deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin, said yesterday that it is acceptable to receive information from foreign governments about a political rival if that information is “credible.”
“Mere information is not something that would violate the campaign finance laws,” Philbin said. “If there is credible information ― credible information of wrongdoing by someone who is running for a public office ― it’s not campaign interference for credible information about wrongdoing to be brought to light.”
New recording further contradicts Trump's claims about Parnas
The Washington Post has obtained a 2018 recording showing Trump meeting with a small group of Republican donors, including Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the former associates of Rudy Giuliani who have been indicted on campaign-finance charges.
The recording further contradicts Trump’s claims that he did not know Parnas, who has turned over documents to House investigators regarding his work in Ukraine with Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.
The Post reports:
While it was known that Fruman and Parnas had attended an event at Mar-a-Lago, the focus of the event, the timing and who else was in attendance had not been made public.
The April 2018 meeting came days before the two men took part in a donor dinner with with the president at his Washington hotel, an encounter captured on a video released last week by Parnas’s attorney.
During that dinner, Parnas told the president that the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was agitating against him, prompting Trump to abruptly call for her firing.
Ohio senator Rob Portman joined some of his fellow Republican colleagues to ask a question to Trump’s lawyers that was clearly meant as an opportunity to criticize the impeachment managers.
And there's GOP Sen. Rob Portman lobbing a softball to the Trump team, allowing them to dunk on managers. Portman is another anti-Putin hawk, a Ukraine policy expert.
— Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) January 30, 2020
Not a good sign for Dems looking for votes for witnesses.
Portman’s decision to join in the question does not bode well for Senate Democrats, who are trying to find a fourth Republican to support calling witnesses in the trial.
Responding to a question from Jon Tester, lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff criticized Alan Dershowitz’s “astonishing” argument yesterday about quid pro quos.
Rep. Adam Schiff responds to Alan Dershowitz's "astonishing" argument yesterday on quid pro quo: "What we have seen over the last couple days is a descent into constitutional madness." https://t.co/nSPWmzfvQC pic.twitter.com/4UVobbmHh3
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 30, 2020
Dershowitz said Trump was acting in the public interest by requesting Ukrainian investigations of Democrats because the president considers his reelection to be in the public interest, a widely criticized argument that Dershowitz tried to walk back today.
“What we have seen over the last couple days is a descent into constitutional madness,” Schiff said. “The only reason you make that argument is because you know your client is guilty and dead to rights.”
While holding a press conference about his question that named the alleged whistleblower, Rand Paul was asked why he had left the Senate chamber where the impeachment trial is taking place.
Reporter asks @RandPaul “with all do respect, shouldn’t you be in the impeachment hearing right now?” pic.twitter.com/Qir0z0dds0
— Kadia Goba (@kadiagoba) January 30, 2020
Each day of the impeachment trial begins with the sergeant-at-arms instructing senators, “All persons are commanded to keep silence, on pain of imprisonment.”
After Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts refused to read a qeustion from Rand Paul, the Republican senator immediately held a press conference to justify his question.
My question today is about whether or not individuals who were holdovers from the Obama National Security Council and Democrat partisans conspired with Schiff staffers to plot impeaching the President before there were formal House impeachment proceedings.
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 30, 2020
Paul read the question to reporters, confirming that the query did indeed name the alleged whistleblower. Roberts has previously said he will not say the alleged whistleblower’s name aloud during the impeachment trial.
“I can tell you my question made no reference to any whistleblower,” Paul said. But the question included the names of two people who worked at the national security council, one of whom is the alleged whistleblower.
Some Republicans have been speculating that the alleged whistleblower conspired with Democratic staffers on the House intelligence committee, an allegation that intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff has repeatedly denied.
Roberts declines to read Paul's question
Rand Paul has submitted his question, which appears to have included the name of the alleged whistleblower, as the Republican senator threatened to do.
But Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts, who previously said he would not say the name of the alleged whistleblower aloud, refused to read the question.
“The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted,” said Roberts, who then turned to take the next question from Senate Democrats.
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Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell thanked senators for being “respectful” with their questions, which are read by Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts, and expressed hope that today would follow that pattern.
The comment was clearly directed at Rand Paul, the Republican senator who has tried to include the name of the alleged whistleblower in a question, even though Roberts has said he will not read the whistleblower’s name aloud.
Impeachment trial resumes with another day of questioning
Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts has assumed his post, and the impeachment trial has now officially resumed.
Today will be the second of two days of questioning, with senators expected to spend eight hours grilling the impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers.
Not much of a surprise here: Joni Ernst has confirmed she will vote against calling witnesses in the impeachment trial.
The Republican senator, who faces a difficult reelection race in Iowa later this year, pointed to the witnesses called during the House impeachment inquiry to justify her decision.
“Let’s be clear: we’ve heard from witnesses and seen documents: 17 witnesses and 28,000+ documents during this entire process,” Ernst told the Omaha World-Herald in a statement. “The House managers had one job: make the case for impeachment, and they’ve failed to do so.”
Senate Democrats have to convince four Republicans to cross party lines to hear from witnesses, but a fourth Republican vote has not yet emerged.
Impeachment manager Jerry Nadler said it “might be” a good idea for the House to subpoena John Bolton if the Senate rejects the Democratic proposal to call witnesses in the impeachment trial.
“If tomorrow’s vote fails, they will not permit him or anyone else to testify,” Nadler said of the former national security adviser, who has reportedly alleged Trump directly tied Ukraine’s military aid to investigations of Democrats.
Nadler predicted Bolton would talk “publicly,” but he added, “There’s nothing we can do to force his testimony if we lose that vote tomorrow in this trial.”
Afternoon summary
The impeachment trial will resume in about 30 minutes with another eight hours of questions from the senators.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Top Democrats, including House speaker Nancy Pelosi and lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff, are saying that an acquittal in the Senate trial will not vindicate Trump if no witnesses are called.
- Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell expressed confidence that Republicans would be able to defeat the Democratic proposal for witness testimony.
- Alan Dershowitz, one of the president’s lawyers, tried to backtrack on his controversial argument that Trump was acting in the public interest by requesting investigations of Democrats because he considers his reelection to be in the public interest.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Schiff criticizes Trump's team for pushing 'the most incredible arguments born of desperation'
Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff criticized the answers presented by the president’s lawyers yesterday, saying Trump’s legal team was pushing “the most incredible arguments born of desperation.”
Schiff warned the logic deployed by president’s lawyers would lead the country down the “most destructive path.”
Schiff specifically called out Alan Dershowitz’s argument that Trump’s request for investigations of Democrats was in the public interest because the president considers his election to be in the public interest. The manager called this point “the most absurdly dangerous argument that could have been made.”
Schiff also echoed House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said this morning that Trump would not be able to claim vindication from an acquittal if there was not a fair trial.
“No trial, no vindication,” Schiff said. “The Constitution requires a fair trial, and that’s all we’re asking.”
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Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer got in this dig against Alan Dershowitz, one of the president’s lawyers for the impeachment trial.
Reporter: Senator Schumer, did you take Professor Dershowitz's class at Harvard Law?
— Ali Zaslav (@alizaslav) January 30, 2020
Schumer: "No, and that's why my arguments are cogent."
Dershowitz taught at Harvard Law School for more than 40 years, between 1967 and 2013, and has since become an outspoken defender of Trump.
Republican senator Josh Hawley suggested John Bolton should publish the “relevant portions” of his forthcoming book to make them available before the impeachment trial ends.
Josh Hawley told us: “I personally don’t know why John Bolton doesn’t put the relevant portions of the book up - just publish it. He said nothing in there is classified in the book as a whole. Why doesn’t he just put the relevant portions up?”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 30, 2020
“Listen, it doesn’t make a difference at the end of the day to what is before us,” Hawley said. “I just think ... I’m ready to vote.”
A spokesperson for Rand Paul said the Republican senator will “insist” on asking his question, which reportedly includes the name of the whistleblower, during today’s proceedings.
Senator Paul will insist on his question being asked during today’s trial. Uncertain of what will occur on the Senate floor, but American people deserve to know how this all came about...
— Sergio Gor (@SergioGor) January 30, 2020
Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts, who reviews and reads aloud each qustion from the senators, has made clear that he will not say the name of the alleged whistleblower or accept questions that clearly seek to identify the person.
During yesterday’s question-and-answer session, Republicans used some of their questions to try to depict the alleged whistleblower, whose complaint sparked the impeachment inquiry, as a partisan operative who was acting out of anti-Trump bias.
Pelosi: 'You cannot be acquitted if you don’t have a trial'
Speaking at her weekly press conference, House speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump’s likely acquittal would not be legitimate because of how the impeachment trial has been conducted.
“He will not be acquitted,” Pelosi told reporters. “You cannot be acquitted if you don’t have a trial. You don’t have a trial if you don’t have witnesses and documentation and all of that.”
The Democratic speaker warned an acquittal would set a dangerous precedent for future presidents. “The fate of our nation is riding on how this is resolved. It isn’t about just one person,” Pelosi said. “It’s about the precedent that it sets for the future.”
Senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway also dodged a question about former chief of staff John Kelly, who said he believes John Bolton’s reported claims in his forthcoming book.
Kellyanne Conway on John Kelly saying he believes Bolton: "I respect Gen. Kelly enormously and like him personally. I don't know what he's referring to so I can't answer. I've not seen the manuscript.” After a lot of pressing by @Yamiche, she say: "I don’t make anything of it.”
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) January 30, 2020
At a Monday event in Florida, Kelly was asked about the Bolton’s book, which reportedly includes an allegation that Trump directly tied Ukraine’s military assistance to investigations of Democrats.
“If John Bolton says that in the book, I believe John Bolton,” Kelly said. “John’s an honest guy. He’s a man of integrity and great character, so we’ll see what happens.”
Addressing reporters in the White House briefing room, senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway ignored a question about Alan Dershowitz’s controversial “public interest” argument, saying she would not discuss “politics.”
Dershowitz said during the impeachment trial yesterday, “If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.” Dershowitz tried to walk back that argument today, claiming the media had misinterpreted his comments.
Trump calls Schiff 'mentally deranged'
Trump is once again lashing out against Adam Schiff, describing the lead impeachment manager as “corrupt” and “mentally deranged.”
“Schiff blasted for not focusing on California homeless.” @foxandfriends His District is in terrible shape. He is a corrupt pol who only dreams of the Impeachment Hoax. In my opinion he is mentally deranged!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2020
This actually isn’t the first time the president has called the Democratic congressman “deranged.” At the Nato summit in London last month, Trump used the same insult, raising concerns about a president leveling political attacks while traveling abroad.
“I think he’s a maniac,” Trump said at the time. “I think Adam Schiff is a deranged human being. I think he grew up with a complex for lots of reasons that are obvious. I think he’s a very sick man.”
Today is day two of the question-and-answer sessions in the impeachment trial, and it is expected to be another eight hours of queries from senators to the impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers.
There are 7 hours and 54 minutes left in senator question time, per GOP aides.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 30, 2020
We should expect senators to use most if not all of it
So get ready for a late night
McConnell expresses confidence about witness vote
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was just asked on Capitol Hill if he felt confident about tomorrow’s vote on witness testimony in the impeachment trial.
“I always do,” the Kentucky Republican replied.
Asked whether he expects a vote on acquittal tomorrow night, McConnell replied, “We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
Some Democratic senators are pushing for Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts to break a tie on witness testimony if the final vote is 50-50.
Sen. Dick Blumenthal just now: “I think the interests of justice which are ultimately his responsibility as the Chief Justice make a powerful argument for his breaking the tie:”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 30, 2020
Democrats may only manage to pick off three Republican senators -- most likely Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski -- for the witness proposal. In that case, the final vote on calling witnesses would be 50-50.
Usually, 50-50 votes in the Senate are broken by the vice president, but that’s not possible in this case because of Mike Pence’s conflict of interest in the impeachment trial.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has indicated that he will consider a tie vote to be a failed vote, so witnesses will theoretically not be called if the vote is 50-50.
That’s why some Democratic senators are calling on Roberts, who was nominated by George W Bush, to break the tie. But that would be a pretty extraordinary step for Roberts, so the odds of it happening seem low.
Dershowitz backtracks on 'public interest' argument
Alan Dershowitz, one of the president’s lawyers, is trying to backtrack on an argument he made yesterday during the impeachment trial.
Many commentators reacted with confusion and outrage when Dershowitz said Trump was acting in “the public interest” by pushing for Ukrainian investigations of Democrats because the president considers his reelection to be in the public interest.
“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” Dershowitz told senators as part of the question-and-answer session.
Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz: "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment." https://t.co/jKErQcS1Iy pic.twitter.com/zo4rL6Zbla
— ABC News (@ABC) January 29, 2020
The president’s lawyer is now trying to walk back that argument, blaming the media for distorting his point. (But the video above clearly shows otherwise.)
They characterized my argument as if I had said that if a president believes that his re-election was in the national interest, he can do anything. I said nothing like that, as anyone who actually heard what I said can attest.
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) January 30, 2020
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Paul Owen.
Even Democratic senators are sounding skeptical they will be able to pass their proposal to call witnesses in the impeachment trial. When asked about the likelihood of calling witnesses, senator Sheldon Whitehouse said this morning, “I doubt it.”
Meanwhile, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is planning for a quick acquittal tomorrow night if the witness proposal fails, according to majority whip John Thune.
“In the end it’s going to be up to the leader, but my view would be at that point you would want to start bringing this thing to a conclusion,” Thune said yesterday. “I’m not sure there would be any value or any point in keeping it going.”
Here Lauren Gambino explains more about how the Democratic primary race works:
US economy misses Trump growth target
The US economy missed the Trump administration’s 3% growth target for a second straight year, Reuters reports, posting its slowest annual growth in three years in 2019 as the slump in business investment deepened amid damaging trade tensions.
The economy grew 2.3% last year, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That was the slowest since 2016 and followed the 2.9% notched in 2018. The 3% growth target has remained elusive despite the White House and Republicans’ $1.5 trillion tax cut package, which President Donald Trump had predicted would lift growth persistently above that target.
Away from the impeachment, the Democratic presidential race begins in earnest on Monday with the Iowa caucuses.
Leftwinger Bernie Sanders is in a strong position there, according to polling averages, although caucuses – in which voters gather for local meetings to demonstrate their support for a candidate and win over anyone else they can – can be hard to poll.
New Hampshire will follow on 11 February, and Sanders is polling even better there (his home state of Vermont is next door). After that attention turns to Nevada, where centrist Joe Biden is ahead, and South Carolina (ditto), before the shape of the race really starts to become apparent when over a dozen states and territories, including California and Texas, vote on Super Tuesday, 3 March.
Biden is some distance in the lead in Texas, but Sanders has a slight lead in California.
The Democrats have no winner-takes-all primaries, so winning large states will not give any of the candidates a knock-out blow at this stage. Nationally Biden is leading in the Democratic race, but Sanders has now cut his lead to a pretty narrow margin.
General election polls show both beating Trump in the popular vote, but not by much, and of course in 2016 Trump lost the popular vote but won in the electoral college.
While the focus at the impeachment at the moment is on whether the Democrats can persuade four Republicans to join them in calling for more witnesses, the GOP is also hoping it can peel off a few Democrats to vote to acquit Donald Trump at the conclusion of the proceedings. As the Washington Post reports:
Under the spotlight are two centrist mavericks who won election last year — Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) — as well as Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), who will face voters this year after a long-shot win in a special election in 2017.
Republican senator Tim Scott notes that any defections “would be a huge win because any bipartisan acquittal is big deal”.
The Republican leadership in the Senate is increasingly confident that they have enough votes to block witnesses being called in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, according to Axios. The news site notes the wily tactics of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell:
Sources familiar with the meeting tell Axios that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told his conference that they did not yet have the votes to block witnesses, knowing that the news would likely leak to the media and alarm some senators who dread both a prolonged impeachment trial and Trump’s Twitter wrath.
No 1 on the witness list for Democrats would be former national security adviser John Bolton, who has been issued with a “formal threat” by the White House to stop him publishing his forthcoming book, in which he claims Trump directly linked a delay in military aid to Ukraine to a condition that the Ukrainian government investigate one of his Democratic rivals, Joe Biden. The White House is claiming the book “appears to contain significant amounts of classified information”, CNN reports.
“We do not believe that any of that information could reasonably be considered classified,” Bolton’s attorney responded. The exchange apparently took place last week, before the New York Times revealed what Bolton’s book said and plunged his account into the centre of the impeachment debate.
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Here’s a poster for an upcoming New Hampshire gig by a live act who exhumed styles and ideas thought to be long-dead and suddenly made them seem fresh and exciting again… and Bernie Sanders.
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) January 29, 2020
My colleague David Smith has interviewed Brad Parscale, Trump’s formidable and controversial election campaign manager. He says the Republicans have “an advantage in time” over their Democratic opponents going into November’s election.
The president was extremely smart the day after the election to say why take our foot off the gas? Election day 2016 wasn’t the end of the fight. It was the start of the fight. And let’s just keep going. Let’s keep fundraising. Let’s keep building. This is a fight for eight years. This isn’t a fight just for a few months.
David has also profiled Parscale here. Kurt Bardella, a former spokesman and senior adviser on the House of Representatives’ oversight committee, tells him:
Obviously the formula that they used in 2016 is something they’re going to try to duplicate in 2020, which is really the tactic of using social media to try to distort the truth and mislead the American people and con themselves back into the White House.
That’s part of the reason why he was made the campaign manager. It shows how much of a priority their misinformation digital strategy is to the re-election campaign.
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Impeachment continues with day two of Q&A phase
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, and all today’s other developments in US politics.
On Wednesday, House prosecutors and the president’s defence team both faced questions from senators for the first time, bringing some drama and edge to the trial as the allegations against Trump were debated directly – albeit through the mouthpiece of chief justice John Roberts, who read each one aloud in accordance with the trial’s arcane rules.
The biggest issue Democrats and Republicans were fighting over was whether to call witnesses – a proposal that has gathered steam since the revelation earlier this week that former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming book claims Trump directly linked a delay in military aid to Ukraine to a condition that the Ukrainian government investigate one of his Democratic rivals, Joe Biden.
This is the claim at the heart of the impeachment trial – and something Trump’s defence team has denied.
“Don’t wait for the book,” leading Democrat Adam Schiff told the Senate, arguing that Bolton should be called. “When you have a witness who is as plainly relevant as John Bolton — who goes to the heart of the most serious and egregious of the president’s misconduct, who has volunteered to come and testify — to turn him away, to look the other way, I think is deeply at odds with being an impartial juror.”
For their part, Trump’s team argued that calling witnesses would change “the nature and scope of the proceedings” and could lead to court challenges that would draw the trial out.
And attorney Alan Dershowitz – whose arguments have frequently strayed away from legal consensus – surprised many when he claimed that a president could not be impeached for asking a foreign leader for a quid pro quo that would help him get re-elected, if he believed his re-election was in the public interest. Schiff called this theory “very odd”.
Trump himself yesterday attacked Bolton’s credibility and warned his party: “Witnesses are up to the House, not up to the Senate. Don’t let the Dems play you!”
The Q&A phase is due to continue today, with the vote on witnesses expected on Friday. Three Republican senators – Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney – have shown interest in calling Bolton or other witnesses. One more would have to switch sides for Democrats to win that vote.
Trump is still extremely unlikely to be removed from office, and hopes to have the trial wrapped up before he delivers the State of the Union address on Tuesday. It’s possible he’ll get his wish tomorrow.
Also today:
- Trump is heading to Warren, Michigan, to celebrate his rewritten trade deal with Mexico and Canada, and he is holding a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, at 7pm local time.
- Most of the Democratic presidential candidates are fanning out across Iowa and New Hampshire ahead of the primaries in those states. Iowa is on Monday, kicking off the race. The four senators running, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennet, will be in the Senate for the impeachment.
- Secretary of state Mike Pompeo is in London, where he is expected to discuss the disputes over the British decision to use Chinese company Huawei in its telecoms network against the wishes of the US, and the attempted extradition of an American diplomat’s wife charged with causing the death of a 19-year-old British man.
You can read more of our coverage of yesterday’s impeachment proceedings here:
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