"New Witnesses" In An Impeachment Trial is Unconstituional

self ^ | January 28, 2020 | Uncle Sham

[Uncle Sham]

The Constitution gives the power of impeachment solely to the House of Representatives. It means that only the House can do the discovery phase of gathering evidence and then putting together Articles of Impeachment to then present to the Senate for the Senate to judge. The Senate can ONLY judge that which the House has constructed and presented. Any witnesses can ONLY be from the witnesses who are included in the Articles presented by the House.

Asking the Senate to help the discovery phase by introducing new evidence at an impeachment trial is the same thing as asking a judge or jury to help the prosecution do it's job in the courtroom. It also would put the Senate in a position of being part of the evidence gathering phase of impeachment that our constitution clearly prohibits as this is only assigned to the House of Representatives. If the House wants new witness testimony, they have every opportunity to get it with the rules that are in place. They can call Bolton to testify IN THE HOUSE, then if they decide to incorporate his testimony into an Article of Impeachment, they are free to do so and then present THAT article of impeachment to the Senate.

In my opinion, if the Senate allows new testimony, Trump's legal team has grounds for getting the entire proceeding thrown out as being unconstitutional.

[semimojo]

There is no constitutional basis to then allow the House to then say, Oh, by the way, he might be guilty of that too.

I don't think anyone's asking to bring new charges.

The House cannot force the Senate to judge an accusation that is not presented as an article of impeachment. By asking for "new" evidence/testimony, this is actually what they are attempting to do because this "new" evidence/testimony is not part or parcel to the articles of impeachment currently being presented to the Senate.

New evidence is not a new accusation, it adds additional weight to an existing one.

You do realize that there's no evidence in the articles of impeachment, only accusations. Right?

[Uncle Sham]

"This would be the first without witnesses."

Not true. There are 18 witnesses cited in these articles of impeachment. Calling them for testimony in the Senate phase is the up to the Senate. This isn't a Perry Mason episode.

[semimojo]

Not true. There are 18 witnesses cited in these articles of impeachment.

The poster was arguing for no witnesses in the Senate, and this would indeed be the first time that happened.

[Rashputin]

This one hasn’t included the rational for calling other witnesses, it was a conviction the House is asking the Senate to approve. Other cases came from the House with far more than a conviction.