WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. Democrats today pressed the Republican-controlled Senate to call Donald Trump’s top lieutenants to testify in its trial of the impeached president, as they sought to focus attention on the trial ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
A day after the U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would not yet formally hand off impeachment to the Senate until she got a sense of how Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell would manage the trial.
“We’re ready when we see what they have,” she told a news conference.
Democrats want McConnell to allow top Trump aides like Mick Mulvaney, the White House acting chief of staff, and John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, to testify, according to a senior Democratic aide.
“Is the president’s case so weak that none of the president’s men can defend him under oath?” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer asked.
In a historic vote on Wednesday, House Democrats impeached Trump for alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to his attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democratic political foe Joe Biden. He is only the third U.S. president to be impeached.
The Senate trial is expected in early January. Trump himself has expressed an interest in a long trial with witnesses, but senior Republican senators want it to be short to try to put the affair behind them. They point out that there were no live witnesses at the 1999 impeachment trial of Bill Clinton.
McConnell and Schumer met this afternoon. Asked how he felt about Pelosi potentially withholding the articles of impeachment, the Republican said: “If the speaker wants to hold onto them it’s fine with us.”
Earlier, McConnell called Trump’s impeachment “toxic” and accused Democrats of succumbing to “transient passions and factionalism,” and made it clear that he did not think the Senate should find Trump guilty.
“The vote did not reflect what had been proven. It only reflects how they feel about the president. The Senate must put this right,” McConnell said on the Senate floor.
WORKING WITH THE WHITE HOUSE
Trump, 73, is accused of abusing his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden, a former U.S. vice president, as well as a discredited theory that Democrats conspired with Ukraine to meddle in the 2016 election.
Democrats say that as part of his pressure campaign, Trump held back $391 million in security aid for Ukraine and a coveted White House meeting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as leverage to coerce Kiev into interfering in the 2020 election by smearing Biden.
Trump is also accused of obstruction of Congress for directing administration officials and agencies not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.
A Senate trial would kick off a politically-charged year heading into the presidential election, which will pit Trump against one of a field of Democratic contenders, including Biden, who have repeatedly criticized Trump’s conduct in office and promised to make it a key issue.
Trump’s presidency has polarized the United States, dividing families and friends and making it more difficult for politicians in Washington to find middle ground as they try to confront challenges like the rise of China and climate change.
The Senate is highly unlikely to find Trump guilty and remove him from office, however. At least 20 Republican senators would have to vote to convict Trump and so far none have indicated they are open to doing so.
McConnell has said he is working in tandem with the White House on trial preparations, drawing accusations from Democrats that he is ignoring his duty to consider the evidence in an impartial manner.
Asked about his strategy, Trump told reporters at the White House: “We have great senators – Republican senators…I’m going to let them decide what to do. That’s going to be up to them.”
‘ROGUE LEADER OF THE SENATE’
Pelosi accused McConnell of being a “rogue leader.”
“Our founders, when they wrote the Constitution, they suspected that there could be a rogue president. I don’t think they suspected that we could have a rogue president and a rogue leader in the Senate at the same time,” she said.
She said she would wait to name the Democratic House “managers,” who will prosecute the case, until she knew more about the Senate trial procedures.
Pelosi’s tactic gives Democrats time to convince some Senate Republicans that they should hear from witnesses, said Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen.
“When you have a trial you get to call witnesses,” he told Reuters.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the impeachment inquiry launched by Pelosi in September a “witch hunt.”
His political future now rests with McConnell, a self-proclaimed “Grim Reaper” who is widely known as a shrewd negotiator who plays hardball politics at a level unusual even by Washington standards.
On the surface, the 77-year-old senator from Kentucky could not be more different from the president. The laconic McConnell eschews Twitter, sometimes sits silently listening in meetings, according to attendees, and can repel reporters’ questions by refusing to utter a syllable.
