Below are the takeaways from the day.
The biggest news of the day came at the end of the trial’s question-and-answer session, at nearly 11 p.m. There are only four potential swing votes, and one of them, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), said he won’t vote to call witnesses.
At the Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday, Donald Trump’s lawyer said that the President can do just about anything he wants.An hour into the Senate trial of Donald John Trump on Wednesday, the emeritus Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz came to the floor to answer a question from a former Harvard law student, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas. In theory, it was a question that went to the heart of the impeachment case against Trump, about the President’s imposition of a quid pro quo on military aid to Ukraine and whether his motivations mattered. Dershowitz had something larger and more profound to say, however: Donald Trump has the power to do just about anything he wants to do, and there’s nothing that the U.S. Senate can or should do about it. Continue reading “Alan Dershowitz for the Defense: L’État, C’est Trump”
Senate likely returns to judicial nominations after impeachment trialIt’s been a constant refrain from Republican senators over the last two weeks: The impeachment trial is blocking us from addressing our legislative agenda.
“While this case is pending, we can’t do anything else,” Texas Republican John Cornyn complained earlier this week, postulating that paralyzing the Senate with impeachment proceedings was part of House Democrats’ strategy.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida has released more than a half-dozen videos over the last two weeks as part of what he’s calling a “Let’s Get Back to Work” series. Continue reading.
Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Thursday sought to clarify remarks he made at President Trump’s impeachment trial while articulating his view of presidential power, saying media outlets “willfully distorted” his argument.
Dershowitz said CNN, MSNBC and other news outlets intentionally ignored a nuanced point he made on Wednesday about the mental state a president must possess in order to commit an impeachable offense.
“They characterized my argument as if I had said that if a president believes that his reelection was in the national interest, he can do anything,” Dershowitz, a opinion contributor to The Hill, said on Twitter. Continue reading.
Video here: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/480669-dershowitz-says-media-willfully-distorted-his-view-of-presidential?jwsource=cl
The fight over calling additional witnesses at President Trump‘s impeachment trial has turned into a struggle for influence between Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney.
The two Republican leaders — one the Senate majority leader, the other the GOP’s 2012 nominee for president — have two very different agendas.
McConnell has staked his reelection to a seventh term on helping Trump implement his agenda and has made clear that he is closely coordinating trial strategy with the White House.
Efforts to bring wavering Republicans into line appeared to be working as President Trump’s lawyers argued that anything a president did to win re-election was “in the public interest.”WASHINGTON — The White House and Senate Republicans worked aggressively on Wednesday to discount damaging revelations from John R. Bolton and line up the votes to block new witnesses from testifying in President Trump’s impeachment trial, in a push to bring the proceeding to a swift close.
As the Senate opened a two-day, 16-hour period of questioning from senators, Mr. Trump laced into Mr. Bolton, his former national security adviser, whose unpublished manuscript contains an account that contradicts his impeachment defense. The president described Mr. Bolton on Twitter as a warmonger who had “begged” for his job, was fired, and then wrote “a nasty & untrue book.”
On Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump’s aides circulated a letter informing Mr. Bolton that the White House was moving to block publication of his forthcoming book, in which he wrote that the president refused to release military aid to Ukraine until its leaders committed to investigating his political rivals. That is a core element of the Democrats’ case, which charges Mr. Trump with seeking to enlist a foreign government to help him win re-election this year.
Republicans are signaling confidence that Chief Justice John Roberts will not insert himself into the middle of the looming fight over witnesses at President Trump’s impeachment trial.
GOP senators are cautiously optimistic they will be able to fend off any effort to call new witnesses. But with several of their colleagues still undecided ahead of Friday’s vote, the possibility of a 50-50 tie is seen as the one remaining wildcard in a trial whose outcome is all but certain to end in acquittal.
Roberts, who didn’t respond to a question this week about possibly casting the deciding vote, is facing pressure from Democrats to allow witnesses, after they unsuccessfully attempted to insert a similar provision in the impeachment rules. Continue reading.
It was clear to Senate Republicans on Wednesday after a morning meeting between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that the question of having additional witnesses is settled, and the Senate will vote Friday to wrap up the impeachment trial of President Trump.
There was no discussion of witnesses at a Senate GOP lunch meeting Wednesday, which was held a couple hours after McConnell and Murkowski met for about 20 to 30 minutes.
That was seen as a sign by several senators that Democrats will fail to convince four Republicans to join them in calling for witnesses. Without a vote to hear from witnesses, the trial could end as soon as Friday. Continue reading.
Former Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill warned on Wednesday that Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado is risking his seat by complying with the GOP plan to limit President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
With the initial stages of the trial coming to a close, senators will soon face a choice of whether to bring witnesses into the trial or to move toward a final vote on Trump’s removal. Democrats have been urging for lawmakers to bring in witnesses, including, most prominently, former National Security Adviser John Bolton to fill out the factual record, a plan most Americans approve of. Most Republicans, however, are eager to get the trial over with and fear that bringing forward more witnesses might only make their goal of acquitting Trump harder.
So attention has turned to the key Republican senators believed to be most likely to split with the president’s interest, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mitt Romney of Utah. And on Wednesday, a key Republican from a swing state — Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado — announced that he is opposed to bringing forward more witnesses, including Bolton. Continue reading.
Senators spent Thursday asking