Trump impeachment: Republicans aim to block witnesses as key vote approaches – as it happened

Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz is now trying another strategy to dissuade senators from indicting the president: He’s arguing removing Donald Trump from office was deepen political divisions.

“Families are broken up, friends won’t speak to each other,” Dershowitz said. “I’m not suggesting that the. impeachment decision by the House has brought that on us —perhaps it’s merely a symptom.”

He urged those who object to Trump’s conduct to “campaign against the president”, noting that Democrats could rid the country of Trump in a mere eight months.

Dershowitz was responding to a softball question from GOP Senators Wicker, McSally and Moran tossed at him: “What specific danger does this impeachment pose to our republic, to its citizens?”

During a brief recess in the Senate trial, Bernie Sanders called into a campaign event in Iowa.

As the Iowa caucus approaches, Senators Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bennet have been juggling their “constitutional duty” with their presidential campaigns.

Warren sent her dog to campaign in her stead.

Writes The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino:

The rules of the trial effectively prohibit double-duty: senators must be in their seats six days a week. No cellphones. And absolutely no talking, archaically but loosely enforced on “pain of imprisonment”.

The situation has forced the Democrats to get creative about how they campaign from hundreds of miles away, in a state where voters famously like to meet their candidates before making a decision.

Senators took another brief recess before resuming the question and answer session. Most often, senators have been fishing for answers.

Democratic senators have given House managers a chance to reiterate the key arguments they laid out during their opening statement. Republican senators have been giving Trump’s defense team many chances to double down on the Bidens and Burisma.

For instance, Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat of Michigan, asked to House managers: “Does an impeachable abuse of power require that a President’s corrupt plan actually succeed?” and gave Zoe Lofgren a chance to reiterate what the managers have been saying all along — the plan need not have panned out, it’s the intention that’s impeachable.

Right after, GOP Senators Barrasso, Risch, Hawley and Moran asked the president’s counsel, almost rhetorically: “Can the Senate convict the US sitting President of obstruction of Congress for exercising the President’s Constitutional authorities or rights.”

Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz has argued that it was right for Donald Trump to decide to investigate Joe Biden and his family after Biden announced his presidential campaign.

At that point, Biden’s went from being “has-been” to a public figure deserving of scrutiny, Derschowitz said, seemingly leaning into the Democrats’ argument that Trump abused power by asking Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.

If a presidential candidate has a “corrupt” son there’s a “good reason for upping the interest in his son”, Dershowitz said.

The question of whether or not to call witnesses – especially John Bolton – has, as Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow noted, been “un undercurrent” of today’s impeachment proceedings. Impeachment managers and Trump’s defense have continued to clash over the issue.

The Guardian’s Tom McCarthy notes:

If the Senate votes to call witnesses, Trump’s legal team warned, “that changes the nature and scope of the proceedings” and could lead to court challenges that would draw the trial out.

Adam Schiff, the lead impeachment manager, argued that Roberts, “a perfectly good chief justice”, could make fast rulings that would prevent the testimony of Bolton or others from creating a lengthy detour in the trial.

“They could no longer contest the facts,” Schiff said of Trump’s defense team. “So now they have fallen back on, ‘You shouldn’t hear any further evidence on this subject.’ Think about the precedent you would be setting if you don’t allow witnesses in a trial.”

The relatively fast-paced question period, which allowed five minutes per response to each of 54 questions before the dinner break, came after a week in which the two sides made strictly siloed opening arguments, speaking for multiple days each to lay out their cases to the senators.

The last two questions have come from presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Sanders asked: “Why should we be expected to believe that anything President Trump says has credibility?” He noted that the media have documented “thousands of lies” from Trump, and forcing Chief Justice John Roberts to read out the tally: “more than 16,200 as of Jan. 20.”

Warren posed a hypothetical: “If Ukrainian president Zelenskiy called President Trump and offered dirt on President Trump’s political rivals in exchange for Trump handing over hundreds of millions in military aid, that would clearly be bribery and an impeachable offense. So why would it be more acceptable and somehow not impeachable for the reverse?”

More on how the impeachment trial is affecting the Democratic primary race:

Donald Trump’s defense has argued that if senators were to call witnesses, the trial would drag on for too long.

“I want Adam Schiff. I want Hunter Biden. I want Joe Biden. I want the whistleblower,” said Jay Sekulow, the lead attorney defending Trump. “If we get anybody we want, we’ll be here for a very long time.”

He added: “The fact of the matter is, we’re not here to argue witnesses tonight, but obviously it is an undercurrent.”

Lead House manager Adam Schiff, in turn, appealed to the floor: “Don’t be thrown off by this claim that if we call witnesses, we will make you pay.”

Appealing to senators, once again, to consider calling former national security adviser John Bolton as a witness, Schiff added: “I’m no fan of John Bolton but I like him a little more than I used to.”

Senator Doug Jones, a Democrat from Alabama, told reporters during the dinner break that he’s “keeping an open mind to hear all the evidence” in the trial. Jones has been viewed as a potential swing vote on the question of whether to acquit or indict Donald Trump.

“I’m open to acquit, I’m open to convict,” he said. “Okay? I want to hear all the evidence, I want to hear witnesses.”

Still, Jones seemed unimpressed with Trump’s defense team, taking issue with their focus on the Bidens. “If they wanted to go after the Bidens, they should have done it a long time ago and nobody did that. Nobody did that, ever,” he said.

He also seemed unconvinced by Alan Dershowitz’s argument that nothing short of a crime was ground for impeachment. “We should probably just abolish the Supreme Court and let professor Dershowitz be the Supreme Court justice,” Jones snarked.

Senator Rand Paul’s question has been rejected, possibly because it names the whistleblower whose complaint launched the impeachment inquiry.

Chief Justice John Roberts essentially refused to read the question out, according to reports.

Donald Trump has his supporters have previously publicized the alleged name of the whistleblower, and have called for the whistleblower to testify in the impeachment inquiry.

Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general who was fired by Donald Trump in 2018 has waded into the debate over whether John Bolton should testify in the Senate trial.

Bolton’s behavior “is an act of disloyalty to the administration one serves and tends to undermine the unity and teamwork needed to reach the highest level of effectiveness,” Sessions wrote in a series of tweets.

Trump has said he never would have named Sessions Attorney General had he known that Sessions would recuse himself from the investigation into Russian election interference.

Since then, Sessions has endeavored to repair his relationship with Trump, especially now that he is campaigning to take back his former Senate seat in Alabama. An endorsement from Trump could give Sessions a huge boost in a competitive primary battle.

Senator Joe Manchin posed a question pointed toward Alan Dershowitz, noting that “high crimes and misdemeanors” clearly doesn’t refer to a statutory crime.

“What has happened in the past 22 years to change the original intent of the framers?” he asked. Dershowitz’s response: “What happened was that the current president was impeached.”

Democrats have been repeatedly harkening back to comments Dershowitz made more two decades ago, during Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Back then, Dershowitz said that “if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don’t need technical crime.”

Throughout Trump’s impeachment trial, Dershowitz has said his views have evolved since, insisting that despite a consensus of legal scholars arguing otherwise, nothing short of a criminal act is grounds to impeach a president.

At one point, the Trump lawyer and Harvard Law professor took aim at one of his Harvard colleagues, Laurence Tribe, who has advised House Democrats on impeachment.

“Professor Tribe got woke, and with no apparent new research, he came to the conclusion, ‘Oh, but this president can be charged while sitting in office.’ That’s not the kind of scholarship that should influence your decision,” Dershowitz said.

House manager Adam Schiff hit back: “I don’t think you can write off the consensus of constitutional opinion by saying they’re all Never Trumpers.”

The Senate has now taken a 45-minute dinner break.

As senators mull the merits of calling John Bolton as a witness, an attorney for the former national security adviser has issued a statement.

“I have received no response whatever to my urgent request for the NSC’s immediate guidance as to any concerns it may have with respect to the chapter of the manuscript dealing with Ambassador Bolton’s involvement in matters related to Ukraine,” said Charles Cooper, an attorney for Bolton.

Cooper also shared his reply to a National Security Council letter saying Bolton’s manuscript contained classified information. “We do not believe that any of the information could reasonably be considered classified,” he wrote in an emailed response.

The lawyer requested “urgent” guidance from the NSC given that Bolton may be called to testify in the Senate trial. “If he is asked to testify, it seems certain he will be asked questions that will elicit much of the information contained in the chapter of the manuscript dealing with his involvement in matters related to Ukraine,” Cooper wrote.

Lisa Murkowski, along with other senators asked another interesting question, posed to both the House managers and Trump’s defense: What standard of proof should be used in impeachment trials.

House manage Zoe Lofgren said the House Judiciary Committee followed the same standard used during Richard Nixon’s impeachment process, only admitting evidence that was more likely true than not true.

White House counsel Patrick Philbin argued that neither a “preponderance of evidence” nor a “clear and convincing” amount met the standard. Lawmakers must make a case “beyond a reasonable doubt”, he said.