Month: January 2020

“Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate,” she added. “I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”

The biggest mystery remaining is how long the trial will last after the witness vote before the Senate takes a final vote on acquittal.

The Senate is debating the motion for witnesses for four hours on Friday, which stated at 1 p.m. ET, before the vote. Two Republican senators are expected to vote for witnesses, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah, along with all 47 Democrats.

After the witness vote is finished, the Senate could move to a final acquittal vote.

GOP aides say while they want the trial to end quickly following Friday’s vote on witnesses, it’s possible it could extend into Saturday or even next week.

Senate Republican leaders need 51 votes to do anything, and they were gauging how quickly they can conclude the trial without drawing objections from several members of the conference, specifically on the issue of deliberations, according to two sources. Senate deliberations, which would take place in closed session, are a wild card, with GOP leaders saying they’d like to move without them.

There’s also the uncertainty of how many motions Democrats will offer before a final vote, another factor that Republicans warn could push the acquittal vote to Saturday or next week.

“My guess is it probably is going to carry us over to the first part of next week, but obviously we have the Iowa caucuses on February the 3rd, and we have the State of the Union the next day,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told reporters Friday morning. “So I think for all sorts of reasons it’s probably a good idea to bring this thing to a close in the near future.”

After a month delay, the Senate trial began two weeks ago. The House managers, led by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, presented a detailed case arguing they had overwhelming evidence that Trump withheld $400 million in US security aid and a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while he pressured Kiev to open investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

But McConnell held his conference together enough to keep the witness vote at bay, with Alexander the lynchpin of his bend-but-not break strategy. Until Thursday, Alexander did not tip his hand on which way he was leaning, declining to speak to reporters about it and staying quiet in GOP conference meetings. He finally asked two questions at the tail end of the two-day Senate question period in the trial, which hinted at his eventual position.

“The question then is not whether the President did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did,” Alexander said in his statement Thursday. “I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday. … Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with ‘the consent of the governed,’ not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide.”

Shortly before Alexander’s statement, Collins became the first Republican to back witnesses. “I believe hearing from certain witnesses would give each side the opportunity to more fully and fairly make their case, resolve any ambiguities, and provide additional clarity,” Collins said.

Romney will also vote for the motion to call witnesses, a Romney aide told CNN on Friday.

The one true undecided vote left in the Republican conference is Murkowski. She and Collins, sitting side-by-side in the Senate chamber, were two of the senators watching most intently throughout the course of trial.

“I’m going to go back to my office, put some eye drops in so I can keep reading,” Murkowski said on Thursday evening, adding she would announce her decision on the witness vote on Friday.

This story has been updated with additional developments Friday.

Although President Zelensky assured President Trump that he would be very serious in looking into the case, when the investigation did not appear to be moving forward, President Trump withheld congressionally authorized military aid to Ukraine and a president-to-president White House meeting.

I believe that the House managers effectively made the case that President Trump improperly demanded the Biden investigation for his personal political advantage, and not to further the United States’ national security interests. In my view, Trump’s initial demand and his subsequent withholding of aid to Ukraine until President Zelensky publicly announced the investigation of the Bidens constituted an abuse of the powers of his office.

As the House managers demonstrated through their dissection of the July 25, 2019, call summary, Trump told Zelensky that he wanted a favor and that he expected an investigation because “the United States has been very, very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say it’s reciprocal…”

Instead of fully responding to the impropriety of the initial ask by Trump on the July 25 call, President Trump’s lawyers focused primarily on the secondary issue — whether the President improperly withheld military aid when the announcement of the investigation was not immediately forthcoming (the so-called quid pro quo), and the lack of direct evidence to support the accusation.

Article Two: Obstruction of Congress

Article Two, obstruction of Congress, is predicated on the President’s blanket refusal to cooperate in any meaningful way with the House investigations.

Which side made the better case is a close call. I see the equities on both sides. I believe, however, that when viewed in its entirety, the complete record of the President’s response through his counsel and in the public domain (Twitter, campaign rallies and press statements) reflects a complete unwillingness to cooperate well beyond the position articulated in the trial by deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin.

The outcome of this directive was that the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of State, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense refused to produce any documents or witness testimony.

Philbin elaborated that the position of the President not to cooperate wholesale with the House investigation was grounded in well-established separation of powers concepts that the Executive Branch enjoyed absolute immunity and that the requested documents potentially could implicate executive privilege. (It is noteworthy that, typically, claims of executive privilege fail if asserted to conceal wrongdoing.)

According to Philbin, if Congress believed that the subpoenas were authorized, the House should have gone to court to enforce them.

It also invites the question: If the President believed that the subpoenas were constitutionally defective, why didn’t he go to court to quash them, as is typical in litigation throughout the country?

In the end, it became clear that the House could not rely on the President to comply with their requests, given his overly broad interpretation of privilege, his belligerence and White House counsel’s unwillingness to cooperate in good faith.

Consequently, Trump left the House with no choice but to proceed as it did with the second article of impeachment.

In my view, the House managers were more persuasive in arguing that, if the President is able to declare the circumstances under which he will cooperate with Congress and he can refuse unilaterally to cooperate when his conditions are not met, the House’s investigatory powers would be null and void. This is not a tenable outcome.

Is a crime required?

President Trump’s alleged conduct — in soliciting Ukraine to investigate his political rival and, then, in withholding military aid until the investigation is publicly announced– violates the public trust and renders his continuation in office a danger to the Constitution. His obstruction of Congress compounds the offense.

Witnesses

The Senate needs to perform its constitutional duty to hold a full and fair trial in which all relevant witnesses testify under oath and all pertinent documentary evidence is disclosed irrespective of whether the House was unsuccessful in obtaining these witnesses and documentary evidence. To do otherwise is to set the dangerous historical precedent that full and fair Senate impeachment trials are not constitutionally required.

Bishopp said that Butter & Scotch was the “obvious choice” as they not only make delicious cakes but are also “willing to stick their neck out for things they believe in.”

“Logistically, it was going to be a nightmare, but I wanted to find a way to do it because I thought it was such a fun project and an awesome way to protest,” Butter & Scotch co-owner Keavy Landreth told CNN.

Transporting 53 sheet cakes from Brooklyn to Washington is no easy feat, so instead of baking all 53 cakes, the bakers decided it would be much easier to locally buy 53 sheet cakes and to decorate and write on all of them.

Butter & Scotch general manager Stephanie Gallardo packed 50 pounds of frosting and sprinkles into a suitcase and took a train down to Washington on Tuesday. The next day, she spent about six hours writing cheeky and pun-filled messages on the cakes.

The cakes had messages such as: “This trial is half-baked without witnesses,” “Don’t go baking my heart” and “The truth is delicious.”

While the messages on each of the cakes varied from one to the next, there was one clear message at the end of nearly every cake: “Let Bolton testify.”

Bishopp said his team called the Senate Sergeant at Arms’ office the night before to ensure that they would be allowed to deliver the cakes to each senator’s office. However, Bishopp said, that once word started to spread about the cakes, the Sergeant at Arms changed the rules to only allow Senate staffers to deliver the cakes.

The Senate Sergeant at Arms’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN.

“What we’d like to ask each Republican senator to do is step outside of the D.C. echo chamber for a minute, have a piece of cake, and remember what’s good,” Bishopp said. “Checks and balances are good. Fair trials are good. Cake is good. Our nation’s forebears knew these things, and each Republican senator ought to know them too. The Republicans who refused to receive a cake today seem to need a reminder.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to move quickly to acquit President Trump if a closely-watched vote planned Friday to compel witnesses and documents for Trump’s impeachment trial is defeated, according to Sen. John Thune, who is the number two GOP Senate Republican.  

Thune noted that after the question of witnesses is resolved, the organizing resolution for the trial allows for an open-ended number of procedural motions to be made by senators, something that might slow a quick end to the trial especially if Democrats demand a large series of debates and votes on motions. 

Each motion is debatable for two hours as are any amendments to them, according to Alan Frumin, a former Senate parliamentarian. 

A top Democratic aide declined to speculate how many motions Democratic senators might offer. 

Thune said McConnell, as majority leader, has the right of first recognition, giving him the chance to move to go to closing arguments, possible closed-door deliberations, and then votes on the two articles of impeachment.

“If that vote were defeated on Friday, you’d be through the part where the organizing resolution governs what happens and then it’s pretty much open motions. The leader would have the right of first recognition and if he wanted to move to closing arguments I suspect we’d do that,” Thune said.

GOP leaders have not said how much time is expected for each side to make closing arguments nor if they expect the Senate to go into closed-door deliberations before casting final votes on the impeachment articles.  

A final vote on the articles could happen as early as Friday or could slide to Saturday or later depending on how events play out. 

The questions on their own don’t signal how any senator may vote on Friday on witnesses or the final vote to convict or acquit the President. But when senators are staying quiet while reporters pester them in the hallways, it’s the best window into their thinking before they cast those votes.

Alexander the Silent

While Collins and Murkowski asked multiple questions Wednesday, another key Republican senator — perhaps the most important — stayed silent: Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a retiring senator who is close to senators on both sides, as well as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Alexander did not pose a question to either side on Wednesday. He also did not speak during Wednesday’s closed-door Republican conference meeting, to keep from tipping his hand one way or the other, according to sources who attended the meeting. Collins and Romney are expected to vote for witnesses — and Murkowski has said she’s “curious” to hear from Bolton. But Alexander has been careful to avoid showing a preference to either side in his public statements.

On Monday, Alexander noted to reporters that he helped fight for the provision in the Senate trial rules requiring the vote on whether to have witnesses, which is expected Friday. “I’ll decide then at that time,” he said.

If he does decide to ask a question on Thursday, you can bet both sides will be paying close attention.

Dems seize on Dershowitz

Much of Wednesday’s Q&A was the equivalent of putting the ball on the tee: Democrats asked the managers friendly questions to make their case, and Republicans gave the President’s team queries to help bolster their defense. Even when the questions crossed the aisle, the format — where senators could not follow up — kept the session from too closely resembling an actual grilling of the President’s team and the House managers.

But that didn’t mean everything was delivered to script. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas asked the President’s lawyers whether, “as a matter of law,” it matters if there was a quid pro quo.

Dershowitz, whose performance Monday was lauded by Senate Republicans, argued the President couldn’t be impeached for a quid pro quo if he believed his reelection was in the national interest.

“Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” Dershowitz said, “and mostly you’re right. Your election is in the public interest.”

“And if a president did something that he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest,” Dershowitz continued, “that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

Democrats seized on the argument, which reinforced the impeachment managers’ argument that the President’s team failed to refute evidence of the quid pro quo at the heart of the House’s impeachment. “When Dershowitz made his absurd argument, obviously, I got up and asked for the counter argument. And I think … the student took the professor to the cleaners,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Later in the day, the President’s counsel Patrick Philbin responded to a different question by effectively rejecting Dershowitz’s premise. “The straightforward answer is, yes, the evidence does show that it would be in the interest of the United States,” Philbin said. “In fact, the evidence on that point is abundant.”

Potential GOP crossovers are dwindling

Democrats need four Republican votes to force subpoenas for documents and witnesses. They’re quickly running out of options.

And Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio asked the President’s legal team to discuss the implications for the Senate if the chamber were to call witnesses, potentially a signal of how he views the question of witnesses.

Democrats can succeed on the vote for witnesses and documents with just four senators: Collins, Murkowski, Romney and Alexander. But the conventional wisdom in the Senate is more Republicans would join Alexander — keeping him from being the deciding vote alone. The options for dance partners are running thin.

Whistleblower fight simmering

Sen. Rand Paul could be seen on the Senate floor during the first break in the trial visibly frustrated. He was overheard, while talking to a staffer, saying: “I don’t want to have to stand up to try and fight for recognition.”

Here’s what you couldn’t see: Paul planned to submit a question to Chief Justice John Roberts related to the origins of the Ukraine investigation, according to two sources. The question specifically named the alleged whistleblower — a name Roberts would have to read himself.

Roberts, sources said, made clear that was not a position he wanted to be in, and Paul was told by Senate GOP leadership that his question would not be accepted to be submitted.

Paul has made clear to leadership he is not backing down on the matter, the sources said, as GOP leaders attempted to find a workable resolution. In short, it’s an unprecedented situation.

“it’s still an ongoing process,” Paul told reporters Wednesday night. “It may happen tomorrow.”

In other words, this isn’t going away and it’s very likely Paul presses his case forward again. How that will be resolved remains and unanswered question, sources involved told CNN.

Asked Tuesday if Democrats made their case that Trump obstructed Congress, Manchin said: “I’m still evaluating that.”

In a video released on Tuesday, Jones indicated that he was more comfortable with the first article of impeachment — abuse of power — rather than the second — obstruction of Congress.

“I’m anxious to hear how the House managers are going to respond to some of the issues that were raised by the President’s lawyers when it comes to Article II,” Jones said.

“Everyone is going to make their own decisions,” Schumer told CNN when asked if he would push his caucus to vote the party-line on conviction. “But we have great unity in our caucus.”

As the impeachment trial shifts to a new phase Wednesday, when senators get to question both sides, these undecided Democrats say that the answers from the prosecution and defense will prove crucial in determining their votes.

Another senator up for reelection in a state Trump carried — Gary Peters of Michigan — said he will wait until the questions are done before making a decision on how to vote.

“It’s not the opening presentations that tend to be the most significant,” Peters said. “It tends to be the questions and how they’re how they’re answered.”

For Republicans up for reelection, the calculus is also tricky: They must avoid angering Trump supporters in their states while also reaching out to more moderate voters who may believe the President abused his office in pushing for Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.

Collins and other Republicans like Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona all face tough bids in the fall and difficult choices ahead. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who also will be targeted by Democrats, told CNN he’s ready to acquit Trump, while McSally has shown no signs she’s prepared to defect.

Others are more cautious.

“I’m going to continue to be impartial, and I take that very seriously,” Gardner said Tuesday.

But for Democrats to take back control of the Senate, they’ll have to flip at least three seats, and win the White House, while protecting Peters and Jones. In 2016, Trump barely won Michigan but swept Alabama by more than 27 points.

Republican groups are already trying to turn impeachment into an issue that will help them flip the House and retain the Senate. America First Policies, a pro-Trump Super PAC, has aired anti-impeachment ads against Jones and began pressuring Peters with an ad in the Grand Rapids media market on Tuesday morning.

Peters said that the calls into his office are “fairly evenly split” on impeachment and has not yet made up his mind.

“I’ve got questions,” Peters said. “I’m going to listen very intently. I’ve got a notebook full of notes.”

Asked about her views, Sinema would not answer questions, with an aide referring a question to her office. A Sinema spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Before the ultimate vote, Jones, Manchin and the other red state Democrats are pushing to hear from new first-hand witnesses who have not testified, including Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. On Wednesday, Manchin said Hunter should also testify if he’s deemed “pertinent” to the trial, even though many Democrats object to deposing him.

“They are talking with their constituents, many of whom support President Trump, trying to hear from every witness and review all the documents before they decide how they will vote,” said Jonathan Kott, a former Manchin senior adviser, of the red state Democrats.

In the past few days, the potential revelations described in Bolton’s manuscript have jolted these Democrats.

While listening to the defense arguments Tuesday afternoon, Manchin battled the urge to sleep — until he heard the name Bolton. It was a week into an impeachment trial that frequently went late into the night and Trump’s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow had name-checked FISA warrants, the Steele dossier and Peter Strzok, drifting away from the people and matters at the heart of the Ukraine scandal.

But then Sekulow mentioned Bolton, who reportedly claims in a forthcoming book that he has first-hand evidence of Trump’s pressure campaign. Sekulow argued that even if Bolton’s allegations were true, they don’t describe impeachable conduct, and read statements from the Trump administration denying their validity.

Manchin sat up straighter, put back on his reading glasses and wrote something down.

Still, Manchin has yet to say how he’ll vote.

“I really think that the 16 hours of questions will be very enlightening,” Manchin told CNN.

This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.

For Republican Senators who were hoping to leave on stable ground and vote against convicting and removing the president, Trump’s lawyers did a fairly good job making that case. Arguments that Trump’s abuse of power is too vaguely defined, that impeachment has become a political weapon and that it would negate the votes of millions were laid out artfully and convincingly — if you were predisposed to hear them, that is.

Even for those who may be weighing more than just their own near-term reelection bids, such as the long-term, historical consequences of defending Trump’s behavior, there was seemingly enough in the presentation to justify a ‘no’ vote.

I talked to one Republican senator this week about whether he was worried about Trump’s drag on the party in the long gaze of history, and he said: “I guess the short answer is no. The more accurate answer is that this is no different than any other issue in the Trump era. You take each issue separately on its own merits. Sometimes you agree with Trump. Sometimes you don’t. In this case, Trump simply has not committed any high crime or misdemeanor. Asking a foreign leader to investigate a corrupt foreign company is perfectly acceptable behavior.”

What he leaves out, of course, is the part where that was in exchange for lethal military aid and in the hopes of damaging a political rival. But many Republicans these days see only what they want to see.

Where Trump’s lawyers failed exquisitely, however, was in making the case against hearing from more witnesses.

“Not a single witness testified that the President himself said that there was any connection between any investigations and security assistance, a presidential meeting or anything else,” Purpura continued.

Here’s what sketch artist Bill Hennessy saw from his perch in the press gallery, including views of Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

See more scenes from the trial:

When the New York Times report on former national security adviser John Bolton broke Sunday night, the White House impeachment team was frantic.

They were immediately bombarded with calls from Republican senators demanding to know more. They met at the White House to triage. And as the night went on, their confidence in denying Democrats witnesses began to dwindle. 

At one point, according to multiple people, there were discussions about potentially losing close to a dozen Republicans, when before they had only worried about three or four votes on witnesses. 

Trump’s top aides were not feeling good going into yesterday’s arguments. Their main priority was damage control and aides worked overtime in reaching out to senators before 1 p.m. Other attorneys avoided addressing the allegations because they weren’t sure how to deal with it.

Then along came Alan Dershowitz, and his argument that even if what Bolton had written was true, it was not impeachable. 

Trump had been complaining that his legal team was boring people, but he was very pleased after Dershowitz, one person said. 

This is notable given Trump had been advised against bringing on Dershowitz given his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. And Dershowitz’s friends had cautioned him against getting involved. 

Of course it’s still far from clear if witnesses will ultimately be called, and officials acknowledge the pressure has ramped up in recent days because of Bolton’s manuscript. 

As senators arrived at the Capitol Monday morning, many Republicans seemed unprepared to hand the onslaught of questions. Several simply declined to answer.

Others diverted attention. When Sen. Pat Roberts was asked Monday morning to respond to the Bolton news, he responded, “I was reading Gone With the Wind.”

Reporters pressed: Why wouldn’t the Senate want to hear from a firsthand witness like Bolton? “Well, that’s a good question,” Roberts admitted.

As senators ducked and dodged, privately some GOP aides were more frank about the effect of the Bolton news.

“No one believed the White argument that Trump didn’t do it,” one aide told CNN. “He called for the investigations on TV! So, it is still a question of whether this is impeachable or if we should let the election happen.”

At a morning press conference, Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana admitted the obvious, that the Bolton news had indeed changed things.

“I think yes it probably will make the dynamic different,” Braun said. “I’m not going to deny it’s going to change the decibel level and probably the intensity of which we go about talking about witnesses.”

Calming the storm

At a pre-trial GOP conference meeting at 11:30 a.m., McConnell tried to calm everyone down. According to senators in the room, McConnell offered one simple piece of advice: take a deep breath.

It seems to have worked. The change was perhaps best reflected by West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito. The typically talkative Republican declined to answer questions about Bolton as she entered the conference meeting.

“I don’t have any comments right now, thanks,” she said.

But after Monday’s session closed, Capito sounded more supportive than ever before that she would oppose allowing witnesses, telling CNN she hasn’t “fully made up my mind yet.”

“I think a lot of points were made tonight that would discount” calling witnesses, Capito said.

Not long after, Trump defenders in the Senate got some back-up from their GOP House colleagues, a group of whom made their way to the Capitol to provide cover from the Bolton fallout.

“It should surprise no one that in the eleventh hour that we would see a replay of what we saw over in the House, which are selective leaks designed to create a narrative that ultimately will change the conversation,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican. “But this is nothing new.”

Rallying the troops

“After 2 weeks, it’s clear that Democrats have no case for impeachment,” Loeffler tweeted. “Sadly, my colleague @SenatorRomney wants to appease the left by calling witnesses who will slander the @realDonaldTrump during their 15 minutes of fame. The circus is over. It’s time to move on!”

Loeffler’s shot across the bow was a key indication that the Bolton news is testing the unity of the Republican Conference. Loeffler, just three weeks on the job, has been friendly with Romney and previously given money to his 2012 presidential campaign and super PAC.

By the time the trial gaveled into session just after 1 p.m., it appeared Republican senators were largely in the place they were before the Bolton revelations broke Sunday night: Sens. Susan Collins and Romney in support of them, Sen. Lisa Murkowski remaining “curious” about Bolton’s testimony, and no real sense of movement from any of the other 50 GOP senators.

Dershowitz resets the mood

“Nothing in the Bolton revelations — even if true — would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense,” Dershowitz said in the middle of what otherwise sounded more like an law-school lecture than an opening argument in a trial.

Dershowitz continued with an argument meant to reassure the rattled GOP senators.

“Even if the President, any president, were to demand a quid pro quo as a condition to sending aid to a foreign country, obviously a highly disputed matter in this case, that would not by itself constitute an abuse of power,” he argued, adding, “Quid pro quo alone is not a basis for abuse of power, it’s part of the way foreign policy has been operated by presidents since the beginning of time.”

The entire presentation made a splash with the Republican conference, with multiple senators shaking Dershowitz’s hand. McConnell could be heard telling Dershowitz the performance was “wonderful.” Sen. Mike Lee of Utah told CNN he thought Dershowitz was “brilliant.”

On Tuesday morning, Braun was still singing Dershowitz’s praises. “I think he probably gave a lot more peace of mind to people that were wanting to see how to sort through it, when he made a strong case that each article was ill-founded,” Braun told reporters in the Capitol Monday morning.

The Dershowitz closing only strengthened the status quo, with multiple Republicans reiterating they’ll make the decision when the time for a vote on witnesses — which will likely be later this week — comes.

“Still going to make my decision when we finish this phase,” said Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey.

Even Romney, who has been speaking in support of witnesses, seemed unwilling to make the effort when asked by reporters about his position following the conclusion of Monday’s trial session.

“I’m really not going to comment on the process until it’s all completed,” Romney said as he boarded a Senate subway car. Then he added, as an afterthought, “I’d like to hear from John Bolton.”

As the subway car pulled away from the Capitol station, Romney — alone with an aide — took in a breath and sighed.