- There were new revelations Friday from John Bolton as the Senate debated whether to call witnesses
- Surprise statement by Sen. Lamar Alexander revealed the votes aren’t there for witnesses
- Trump told Bolton to assist his pressure campaign on Ukraine, former security advisor writes
- Bolton says White House counsel Pat Cipollone was in the room at the time
- Cipollone has been leading the defense that Trump carried out no impeachable offenses
- Senators arrived in the Capitol Friday for four hours of debate on whether to call witnesses
- There remains a possibility of a 50-50 tie – where in theory Chief Justice John Roberts might be able to determine the outcome
- Giuliani said Bolton is ‘making some of it up’ and called him a ‘scumbag’
- Trump denied giving Bolton the directive
- Drama came as Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she is a ‘no’ on calling witnesses
Donald Trump’s impeachment trial will end at 4pm on Wednesday after a dramatic day Friday in which Republicans triumphed by voting 51 to 49 against calling witnesses – but then agreed to delay a final vote until after the president’s State of the Union address.
The Senate voted to reject a Democratic call to hear from witnesses at President Trump‘s impeachment trial – a critical procedural win for the president and the first formal vote signaling his likely acquittal.
Two Republicans, Mitt Romney and Susan Collins, crossed the aisle to join Democrats in their push for witnesses – but it was not enough to prevail.
‘The motion is not agreed to,’ announced Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial.
With the votes in, Republicans and Democrats both appeared able to see which way the trial was ultimately going – and for the first time began kicking around a proposal that would get to a final outcome – after President Trump is set to deliver his State of the Union address.
He headed to Mar-a-Lago just before the final vote, meaning he was on Air Force One as the Senate rejected calling any witnesses, who could have included John Bolton, his former National Security Advisor.
Bolton delivered a new bombshell an hour before the Senate opened the trial session, with another leak of his forthcoming book revealing that he will say that Trump ordered him to set up a call between Rudy Giuliani and Volodymr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, two months before the ‘perfect’ call at the center of impeachment.
The proposal to push off a final vote until Wednesday – and – will ‘glide us into a conclusion,’ Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana told reporters in the Capitol.
Senators agreed to a resolution Friday night allowing for senators to make speeches on Tuesday and for opposing lawyers to make their final arguments in the impeachment trial Monday. It sets up the final vote on the impeachment articles Wednesday.
Democrats also got the opportunity to offer four amendments, which put Republicans on record as voting down specific witnesses they wanted to call to testify in the impeachment trial.
They put senators on record voting on subpoenas for Bolton and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, as well as other White House officials, budget documents, and Pentagon documents.
Schumer offered a straight-up amendment just to subpoena Bolton, and another that set up the terms for his potential testimony. It would be a one-day deposition and one day of live testimony within five days adoption – an effort to counter Trump lawyer claims that it could drag on the trial for weeks.
The first amendment failed on a party-line 53-47 vote. However Schumer’s amendment to subpoena Bolton – a critical figure in revelations of the last week – was defeated on the same 51-49 vote against witnesses generally.
Still another amendment would require the chief justice to rule on motions to subpoena witnesses and documents. When Schumer made a ‘parliamentary inquiry,’ Roberts told him it would be ‘inappropriate’ for him, as an unelected official from another branch, to decide the outcome.
The Senate was set to come back into session at 11 am on Monday – which would require a quick turnaround for three senators eager to campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in Iowa.
White House director of legislative affairs Eric Ueland told reporters the president was ‘gratified’ the Senate had agreed on a schedule ‘for his acquittal.’
The schedule senators agreed to means Trump would still be technically under an impeachment cloud when he delivers his prime-time speech.
The Democratic defeat came even as new revelations emerged Friday morning from a manuscript by Bolton, who claims President Trump told him to contact the president of Ukraine as part of a push to get investigations of the Bidens.
‘Americans will know that this trial was not a real trial,’ said Sen. Charles Schumer immediately after the vote, calling it a tragedy on a very large scale.
Schumer called it a ‘perfidy, a grand tragedy, one of the worst tragedies that the Senate has ever overcome. America will remember this day, unfortunately, where the Senate did not live up to its responsibilities … and went along with a sham trial.’
Utah Republican Mitt Romney and Maine Republican Susan Collins each voted ‘aye’ and voted for witnesses. Both had indicated they wanted to hear from Bolton.
Two other key Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, opted to oppose calling witnesses – which Trump’s lawyers could lead to weeks of additional time, with uncertain consequences.
Trump was en route to his Mar-a-Lago property in West Palm Beach, Florida, when the vote came down.
Earlier he tweeted: ‘The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats keep chanting “fairness”, when they put on the most unfair Witch Hunt in the history of the U.S. Congress. They had 17 Witnesses, we were allowed ZERO, and no lawyers. They didn’t do their job, had no case. The Dems are scamming America!’
With the vote behind them, senators had yet to find a way forward – including not only establishing a procedure for deliberations or further speeches – but to whether they could go home for a few days or get on the campaing trail.
Key political moments including the Iowa Caucuses and the president’s hope for a triumphal State of the Union are at stake. There was discussion among senators about a deal to bring closure to impeachment, after demonstrations that there are not sufficient votes to convict the president on two charges brought by the House.
But untangling the procedural knot will take some combination of compromise and time.
The key Senate vote occurred after senators debate for hours about whether to call witnesses, regurgitating familiar arguments about the president’s conduct and the nature of the House impeachment inquiry that preceded the trial.
‘We Democrats are united in saying we do not want this rushed through. Every senator has an obligation, as well as a right, to let the people of their states and the American people know why they’re voting on this resolution on witnesses and documents and on whether the president should be convicted,’ Schumer said before the final vote.
Schumer called a New York Times report with new revelations from John Bolton a ‘thunderbolt.’
‘That is devastating,’ he said. ‘A month after Biden announced, they’re already, according to Bolton, is president Trump seeking to get Ukraine to release bad information through Mr. Guliani’ about Biden, Schumer told reporters.
John Bolton’s book manuscript contains yet another revelation about the Ukraine affair that emerged just minutes before the Senate was to start debating whether to call impeachment witnesses – including Bolton himself.
This time, the new information puts Bolton in the thick of President Donald Trump‘s push for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
The bombshell dropped right before the Senate entered a new phase in Trump’s impeachment trial with a debate over calling witnesses. Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer warned Republicans would ‘rue the day’ they failed to call witnesses, and impeachment manager Adam Schiff warned: ‘The facts will come out. In all of their horror, they will come out.’
His impeachment lawyers have spent a week arguing the president did nothing wrong and nothing impeachable. According to the new information, reported in the New York Times, Trump told Bolton in early May of last year to help his campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
The drama came as Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she is a ‘no’ on calling witnesses, hours after Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said he would vote against calling them.
The Senate is filled with weasels. I’m sick of the whole bunch. The House included. Go into public service a pauper and come out rich as Croesus. How does that happen? Oh, yeah – I remember now…