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The house can demand witnesses. That's a negotiating position. I don;t think it is appropriate in this context, given the nature of the claim is that the July 25 call amounts to what the DEMs say.

At some point, prosecutors poking around your junk becomes harassment. Witnesses to Trump's conduct have exec privilege, etc., so the evidentiary issues here aren't trivial.

It's also up to the senate to decide when evidence becomes repetitive, irrelevant, etc. The rock bottom question is "are we going to remove for this," and they have a pretty good idea of the underlying "this" without the DEMs bringing in more witnesses and cherry picking and spinning for the public. Senate has an institutional reputation of its own, just as a court does.

As for Trump defense, he at least gets to provide an answer/rebuttal to the charges, and his 1st amendment isn't shut off. He's been ridiculing the DEMs case from the get-go, including with substantive evidence that seeps into the public.

I don't think this is a hard case. Either you find to whatever standard of belief you choose for yourself that Trump is calling on Ukrain to screw with Biden for election purposes, or not.

A weak defense is it is reasonable to suspect Biden s corrupt. A killer one is to prove Biden is corrupt.

And tribunal is the senate, not SCOTUS. The senate makes all impeachment trial rules. CJ SCOTUS is there so all the senators can sit as judge/jury on the "do we remove for this?" question.

Merry Christmas to your dad! I'm out of this conversation. Enjoyed it.