Senate leaders at impasse over Trump impeachment trial

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The fate of a Senate impeachment trial for
President Donald Trump is at an impasse as Republican and Democratic
leaders remained at odds over what form it would take and what witnesses
would be called.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he
has not ruled out calling witnesses but also indicated that he was in no
hurry to seek new testimony either. The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck
Schumer of New York, responded that any trial without witnesses would be
“Kafkaesque” and a “sham.” He said he remained open to negotiating with
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.

“Let’s put it like this: If
there are no documents and no witnesses, it will be very hard to come to
an agreement,” Schumer told The Associated Press on Monday.

The
House voted Wednesday to impeach Trump, who became only the third
president in U.S. history to be formally charged with “high crimes and
misdemeanors.” But the Senate trial may be held up until lawmakers can
agree on how to proceed. Schumer is demanding witnesses who refused to
appear during House committee hearings, including acting White House
chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John
Bolton.

McConnell, who has all but promised a swift acquittal of
the president, has resisted making any guarantees, and has cautioned
Trump against seeking the testimony of witnesses for fear of prolonging
the trial. Instead, McConnell appears to have secured Republican support
for his plans to impose a framework drawn from the 1999 impeachment
trial of President Bill Clinton.

“We haven’t ruled out
witnesses,” McConnell said Monday in an interview with “Fox and
Friends.” “We’ve said let’s handle this case just like we did with
President Clinton. Fair is fair.”

That trial featured a 100-0 vote
on arrangements that established two weeks of presentations and
argument before a partisan tally in which Republicans, who held the
majority, called a limited number of witnesses. But Democrats now would
need Republican votes to secure witness testimony — and Republicans
believe they have the votes to eventually block those requests.

In
a letter Monday to all senators, Schumer argued that the circumstances
in the Trump trial are different from those of Clinton’s, who was
impeached after a lengthy independent counsel investigation in which
witnesses had already testified numerous times under oath. Schumer
rejected the Clinton model, saying waiting until after the presentations
to decide on witnesses would “foreclose the possibility of obtaining
such evidence because it will be too late.”

Schumer also demanded
that the Senate, besides receiving testimony, also compel the Trump
administration to turn over documents and emails relevant to the case,
including on the decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine. He told
the AP that Democrats aren’t trying to delay but are simply asking for
information directly relevant to the charges in the impeachment
articles.

He said that if McConnell won’t agree, “we can go to the floor and demand votes, and we will.”

House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has delayed sending the articles of impeachment to
the Senate in hopes of giving Schumer more leverage in talks with
McConnell. But the White House believes Pelosi won’t be able to hold out
much longer, and the impasse between the Senate leaders leaves open the
possibility of a protracted delay until the articles are delivered.

Trump
has called the holdup “unfair” and claimed that Democrats were
violating the Constitution, as the delay threatened to prolong the pain
of impeachment and cast uncertainty on the timing of the vote Trump is
set to claim as vindication.

“Pelosi gives us the most unfair
trial in the history of the U.S. Congress, and now she is crying for
fairness in the Senate, and breaking all rules while doing so,” Trump
tweeted from his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is on a
more than two-week holiday vacation. “She lost Congress once, she will
do it again!”

White House officials have also taken to
highlighting Democrats’ arguments that removing Trump was an “urgent”
matter before the House impeachment vote, as they seek to put pressure
on Pelosi to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

At
one point, Trump had demanded the testimony of witnesses of his own,
like Democrats Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and the intelligence
community whistleblower whose complaint sparked the impeachment probe.
But he has since relented after concerted lobbying by McConnell and
other Senate Republicans who pushed him to accept the swift acquittal
from the Senate and not to risk injecting uncertainty into the process
by calling witnesses.

The Constitution requires a two-thirds
majority in the Senate to convict in an impeachment trial — and
Republicans have expressed confidence that they have more than enough
votes to keep Trump in office.

A separate but related fight flared
Monday in the courts, where the House Judiciary Committee held open the
possibility of adding to the articles of impeachment against Trump
depending on whatever testimony it can obtain from former White House
counsel Don McGahn. The committee also said that testimony from McGahn
could be useful in any Senate impeachment trial.

A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments on Jan. 3 on whether to force McGahn to comply with the subpoena.