The ninth full day of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the US Senate has concluded. Here are five key takeaways:
Trump on verge of acquittal as witnesses question fades
With one potentially swing Republican vote, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, announcing on Thursday night that he would vote against hearing from witnesses at the trial, the math looked bad for Democrats hoping to gather more evidence in the trial.
Trump could be acquitted as early as Friday evening. Two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah, indicated they would support witnesses, and a third moderate Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, said she would sleep on it.
But the best Democrats could hope for was a 50-50 tie in the push for witnesses, which would then probably fail.
Question from @lisamurkowski: This dispute about material facts weighs in favor of calling additional witnesses with direct knowledge. Why should this body not call Amb. Bolton? pic.twitter.com/xiXrs7uLQP
— Stand Up America (@StandUpAmerica) January 31, 2020
Roberts’ role in flux
Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding at the trial, could be approaching an uncomfortable moment where he must make a decision about whether to break a tie on the witnesses vote. If the vote is 50-50, Roberts could add his vote – or allow the tie to hold, in which case the motion would fail.
It was more likely, perhaps, that the witnesses question would fail outright. But even if Roberts escapes having to make the big call, he did get involved on a lower level at two moments during the trial on Thursday.
Early in the day, the Kentucky senator Rand Paul submitted a question naming the anonymous whistleblower whose complaint sparked the impeachment inquiry. Roberts rejected the question, saying: “The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted.”
Later, Roberts gently advised senators not to address questions to specific counsel.
Schiff’s offer: one week for witnesses
In a late-stage gambit for witnesses, the House manager Adam Schiff offered to restrict witness depositions to a time window of one week, after the model of the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, when three witnesses were deposed on video outside the Senate chamber.
“Let’s use the Clinton model,” Schiff said. “Let’s take a week. Let’s take a week to have a fair trial.”
The offer was not met with any enthusiasm on the Republican side. Senator Mike Braun of Indiana said the majority was hoping for an acquittal by Friday night: “That’s where all the momentum is right now.”
‘That way madness lies’
Schiff, the lead prosecutor in the case, warned that the Republicans’ unified determination to protect Trump instead of collecting evidence was paving the way toward a presidency unbound by congressional oversight or any other checks and balances.
“What we have seen in the past few days is a descent into constitutional madness, because that way madness lies,” Schiff said.
Rep. Adam Schiff criticized the expansive defense of presidential power offered by Trump’s #impeachment lawyers, saying the only reason for the argument is because they know their client is guilty pic.twitter.com/s9SkDzaLJs
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 31, 2020
‘The constitutional danger of this moment’
While the impeachment trial is not yet half as long as Bill Clinton’s 1999 trial, Republican senators called it a waste of Senate time and warned that calling witnesses would stretch the proceedings out indefinitely.
Legal scholars and other observers expressed alarm at the prospect that the Senate would drop the case so soon, given what they described as historic stakes:
I don't think people fully grasp the constitutional danger of this moment. If the Senate were to refuse to call relevant witnesses with direct testimony of grave presidential wrongdoing then we can no longer understand impeachment to be a genuine check on executive overreach.
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) January 30, 2020
The Constitution wasn't designed to deal with people who don't give a shit. https://t.co/xSUjroMkNQ
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 30, 2020
