Democrats have to decide overnight whether fighting acquittal to the last ditch is worth their time, keeping in mind that the real verdict they are pursuing is in the court of public opinion, rendered between now and November 3
Lamar Alexander kept quiet until the very end, but then dropped a hammer on the effort to hear witnesses, Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images During the second and final day of senatorial questions for the contending lawyers in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, we heard a combination of now-familiar talking points and a steadily increasing focus on the crucial question of whether witnesses should be called and documents subpoenaed and placed into evidence.
By and large, though, the president’s team and helpful Republican senators stuck to their argument that the impeachment measure was a partisan rush job that failed to put together a credible case, and that the call for witnesses was an effort to force the Senate to fix a fatally flawed process.
Barring something weird, there are 50 —and probably 51 — firm votes against witnesses, with the difference based on whether you think Murkowski is really undecided. So the big question is whether there are any cards left in the deck for Democrats to play. Chris Van Hollen indicated that he would make a motion Friday that Chief Justice Roberts rule on witnesses in his capacity as the trial’s presiding officer, but there’s no reason to think it would get 51 votes.
Those options could range from proposals for a closed-door session to having more time to deliberate before delivering a verdict. No final decisions have been by the party on how to handle the possibility that 51 GOP senators try to move the trial to a quick end. There’s also the matter of whether it’s worth keeping the four Democratic senators running for president in town through the weekend.The trial rules say “you can deliberate.
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