Senate Officially Votes to Stop Democrats’ Attempts to Prolong Trial
By Daily Wire. The U.S. Senate officially voted late on Friday to put an end to Senate Democrats’ attempts to prolong President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial by calling on new witnesses to testify and new documents to be brought into the trial.
The move to prolong the trial was shot down in a 51 to 49 vote, which saw establishment Republican Senators Mitt Romney (UT) and Susan Collins (ME) defect from the party and join the Democrats. . .
YEA 49 — NAY 51: Senators have voted against allowing witnesses in the impeachment trial of Pres. Trump https://t.co/vwxdcibO1r pic.twitter.com/vKtfy0OsNb
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 31, 2020
Democrats had suffered another defeat late on Thursday night when Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) announced that he was also not in favor of calling for additional witnesses and documents.
“I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but 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, later adding, “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. The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did.” (Read more from “Senate Officially Votes to Stop Democrats’ Attempts to Prolong Trial” HERE)
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Andrew McCarthy: In Trump Impeachment Trial, Senate Right to Block New Witness Testimony
By Fox News. The Senate was right to vote Friday against hearing new witness testimony at President Trump’s impeachment trial. The Democrats’ demand for new witnesses at the trial was a red herring – a talking point that had some surface appeal but, upon scrutiny, was nonsense.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and the other impeachment managers claim that there have been no witnesses in the trial. They said before the Senate voted 51-49 Friday to block more witnesses that if Republicans did note vote to approve subpoenas for former National Security Adviser John Bolton, among other top current and former administration officials, that the trial will be a “sham” – an exercise in “cover-up.” You can’t have a real trial, was their refrain, unless witnesses are called.
It is nonsense. There have been plenty of witnesses. Schiff’s problem is that the additional witnesses he wanted to call would not change what has already been proved in any meaningful way.
Obviously, what’s happening in the Senate is not a trial in any familiar sense. We are used to judicial trials. Impeachment presents something completely different, a Senate trial. The Senate is a political body, not a law court. (Read more from “Andrew Mccarthy: In Trump Impeachment Trial, Senate Right to Block New Witness Testimony” HERE)
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