Posted on 01/21/2020 12:40:52 PM PST by Red Badger
KEY POINTS Senate Democrats won two key last minute changes to the rules of Trump’s impeachment trial.
Each side will now have three days to make its opening statements, instead of two.
The Senate will also automatically admit evidence from the House investigation into Trump last fall.
WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats won two key changes to the rules of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial as proceedings kicked off Tuesday afternoon.
The changes will permit each side to stretch out the 24 total hours they’ve been allotted for making arguments over three days, instead of two, as McConnell had initially proposed. The changes will also automatically admit into evidence the entire record of the House impeachment probe into Trump last fall.
The surprise last-minute changes were revealed Tuesday afternoon during a formal reading on the Senate floor of the resolution governing the rules of the trial. A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer later confirmed the changes to CNBC.
“After massive pressure from Senate Democrats and the public, Senator McConnell has made two changes to his organizing resolution for the Senate impeachment trial,” Schumer aide Justin Goodman said in an email.
“1. The House record will now automatically be admitted into evidence (under McConnell’s’ original resolution, the Senate would have to vote to add it in) 2. Each side now has three days to make their opening statements (McConnell’s original resolution said it had to be done over two days),” Goodman wrote.
A spokesman for McConnell did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how the change came about. But one clue to McConnell’s thinking may lie in the fact that there are distinct benefits for Trump and the GOP in how Tuesday’s events unfolded.
McConnell is known for his exceptionally shrewd use of Senate rules to help him accomplish political objectives, and his last minute changes to the trial rules seem to have been no exception.
While the decision might initially look like a concession to the Democrats, it served McConnell’s aims, as well. By waiting as long as he did to announce the changes, McConnell ensured that his Democratic counterparts spent the day before the trial focused primarily on objecting to the specifics of those two rules.
“McConnell seems to want a trial with no existing evidence and no new evidence,” Schumer said at a Tuesday morning press conference. “A trial with no evidence is not a trial at all. It is a cover-up.”
Schumer also accused McConnell of proposing the short timeline in order to keep the public from watching the trial on TV, by forcing each day’s proceedings to stretch well past midnight, when most people have gone to bed.
But by essentially keeping Schumer busy fighting for evidence and more time, McConnell ensured that there would be lesser focus on a third, equally contentious issue in the rules: Whether the Senate will hear from live witnesses.
The outcome of a debate over witnesses could have far more serious implications for the president than a debate over whether to limit opening arguments to two days or three.
In a surprise move earlier this month, former Trump national security adviser John Bolton formally announced that he would be willing to testify in a Senate trial if he were subpoenaed to do so. Bolton was at the center of the White House national security apparatus during key moments at issue in the impeachment articles, and should he actually testify under oath, Bolton’s account would likely be damaging to the president.
Trump is charged with abusing his power by withholding foreign aid to Ukraine in order to force the country to launch high-profile investigations into Trump’s political opponents. He is also charged with obstructing Congress by prohibiting top aides from testifying before the House last year. He has denied any wrongdoing.
McConnell has so far said that senators will be asked to vote on the witness question later in the trial, after they’ve heard arguments from each side. But Democrats say that amounts to voting on witnesses after the trial is essentially over.
The final rules also leave open the option of holding a vote to dismiss the charges against Trump outright, via a motion on the Senate floor. While only a simple 51-vote majority would be required to pass that motion, a handful of the 53 Republicans in the chamber have suggested they would not vote to dismiss the charges.
Still, it is highly unlikely that two-thirds of the Senate will vote to convict and remove a Republican president. Trump is only the third president in American history to be impeached, and so far no Senate Republicans have said they will vote to convict him.
Opening arguments in the trial are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, and continue well into next week.
Too bad there’s no such thing as YouTube. Maybe Schumer should invent it.
If Al Gore can invent the internet, Schumer can invent YouTube.
When I first heard the 12 hour day rule, I though that was something that none of the Senators would want. Giving in on that was easy. As for admitting the House evidence, it was going to have to come in at some point, now McConnell made it look like he is trying to be fair.
Imagine now, the media is reporting how fair McConnell is, just as the Democrats are trying to portray the Senate as unfair. Well played, Mitch!
Including ICIG Atkinson’s testimony (which has not been released)????
That’s the big question. Not sure from this story who the “evidence” has been released to. If only the senate, it might take time to learn the answer.
This was likely a bi-partisan rules change. Nobody wanted to miss out on cocktail hours.
The Senate has to try the Articles that passed the House, not theoretical or proposed Articles that didn’t.
“Obstruction of Congress” should obviously be dismissed for want of basis.
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I realize this whole process is a political process. But impeachment is part of our constitution and the chief justice does preside. So, why couldn’t Repubs appeal to the SCOTUS that the articles are unconstitutional?
All they will do is piss off a few million viewers of soaps...................in the 80’s I used watch Y&R on my lunch break.....It’s easy to get hooked.........
Isn’t all the house evidence hearsay? Can the Trump team get individual pieces thrown out one by one?
“Admitting automatically all the evidence introduced in the House means that it doesn’t have to be introduced separately into the Senate via testimony. It also permits GOP Senators to state that they had access to the exact same evidence as the House.”
I wonder if the “secret” testimony comes before the Senate also?
Generally, I agree with you. They don’t need a repeat of all the live testimony before the House.
But I don't think he wants a fair-o trial.
I suspect this way they can toss the whole thing, but that is probably wishful thinking.
Pyrrhic victory over minutiae! Nothing more!
It’s not like a judicial trial.
The Senate will hear the evidence as presented by the house and that is all.
Then they vote...................
Fake News! Their take not reality.
Did Dems give Republicans in the House a SINGLE concession in that farce of a hearing?
We should give as good as we got.
These folks are use to working no more than four hrs. a day, three days a week and having very long vacations....they can't handle 12 hrs. ..they would all be falling asleep in their chairs...
I for one am sick and tired of Congress being used as an old age home for the elderly...
PAST TIME FOR TERM LIMITS...TIME FOR VOTERS TO VOTE FOR THEM...AND SEND A MESSAGE TO CONGRESS...PUT IT ON EVERY STATES BALLOT..
I assumed that the senate would have voted to accept all the evidence anyway; and this just put that vote into the rules, which were then voted on.
And the 3-day/2-day thing was genius, because the 2-day rule would have made it possible for the senators running for president to get done before the Iowa caucus. Now they can’t, and the republicans can blame the democrats for that.
Exactly.
Let’s make sure the tone of Mitch stays the same throughout.
I wonder if that Virginia Protest made Rs in the senate know that they’d better not fold or they will lose their seats.
And not just the ones up for reelection next year.
They need to know no one will forget.
Gotta be the greatest stick in the eye that's ever been pulled in the Senate.
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