McConnell: GOP will move on without Democrats to set rules for Senate impeachment trial of Trump

WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the GOP-led Senate would move forward on establishing rules for President Donald Trump’simpeachment trial without Democrats. 

“We have the votes, once the impeachment trial has begun, to pass a resolution essentially, very same, similar” to the one establishing rules passed for the first phase of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, McConnell said.

These rules would establish “phase one” of the trial, which involves “arguments from the prosecution, arguments from the defense and a period of written questions,” McConnell said. 

A decision on witnesses would be made during the trial, rather than before it began, he said. 

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For weeks, McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., attempted to come to an agreement on how the trial should operate. McConnell pointed to precedent, arguing the trial should operate like Clinton’s in 1999. 

Schumer argued the presentation of witnesses and documents should be agreed to beforehand, saying the Trump administration blocked information and testimony important to impeachment. The information, he said, would shed more light on the allegations at the heart of impeachment: that the president asked Ukraine for investigations that would have helped him politically while delaying military aid to the country and a White House meeting.

In Clinton’s impeachment trial, witnesses and other sticky issues were decided in the middle of the trial. Senators decided to establish basic rules and procedures for the trial, which passed 100-0, and to take up more contentious issues later. 

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Schumer pointed to comments made by McConnell signaling that after opening arguments, the Senate could vote and move forward on other issues without additional witnesses. 

The back-and-forth between Schumer and McConnell combined with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refraining from transmitting the articles to the Senate left the trial and Trump’s fate in a state of limbo.

Pelosi said she worried the Senate would not hold a fair trial and said she wanted to know the arena the House would operate in before naming house managers, which are lawmakers who will act as prosecutors in the trial. 

McConnell will not introduce a resolution outlining impeachment trial rules until the articles are transmitted to the Senate. Pelosi and House Democrats have not given any indication when they may pass them over.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said the House and Senate need to move forward.

“It’s time for Speaker Pelosi to get on with it or get out of the way,” he said.

After McConnell’s announcement, some Democrats said the best way to move forward was for Pelosi to send over articles and wait until the trial to argue for witnesses. 

“I think our best leverage at this point is likely votes on the floor of the Senate,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. “Pelosi’s going to make her own decision, but I think that at this point, our best leverage to get witnesses and document production is inside the confines of the trial.” 

Schumer would not say whether Pelosi should send over articles but pointed out that “the speaker has said all along that she wanted to see the arena in which she was playing in when it came to a trial, so she could appoint impeachment managers.”

He said she has “some idea” how the trial will work and applauded Pelosi for holding the articles, saying she helped prevent the trial from being dismissed. The delay allowed for a “cascade” of new information that bolsters the case for witnesses to testify, Schumer said. 

John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser and a key figure in the Ukraine controversy, announced Monday he is “prepared to testify” in  the impeachment trial if he’s subpoenaed. 

Bolton’s statement – after he played coy for weeks about what he knows – may help Democrats in pressuring Republicans to include witnesses in the trial.

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If Senate Republicans refuse to subpoena Bolton and other witnesses, “they would make absolutely clear they are participating in a cover-up,” Schumer said. 

A majority of 51 senators could vote to call for testimony or documents during the trial, something Schumer said Democrats would force. 

“We are telling our Republican colleagues you can run but you can’t hide,” Schumer said Tuesday. “There will be votes on the four witnesses we’ve asked for. There will be votes on the three sets of documents we’ve requested.”

Several moderate Republicans could hold the key to whether witnesses and new information are part of the trial.

One of them, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, signaled on Monday that he was open to hearing from Bolton. “I’d like to hear what he has to say,” Romney said. 

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