As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made multiple attempts to subpoena documents and witnesses during the opening day of the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump’s legal team sang the same tune: This was the wrong time. In response to every round of amendments, Trump’s attorneys repeated the claim that they weren’t really trying to suppress witnesses; it was just that Schumer was asking at the wrong time. There would be a point later in the trial, after the case was made and debates were complete: Then there’d be a time when the rules would allow for witnesses. Or, actually, when the rules would allow for debate over whether any witnesses should be called, with a provision to shut down all witnesses with a single vote.
And McConnell has made it clear how he wants to use that vote. Despite all the overnight protests that if Schumer would only sit down, and the House managers would stop supporting the call for subpoenas, there would be a time for all that later, McConnell has made the real plan perfectly plain to Senate Republicans: He wants no witnesses in this trial. Ever.
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As CNN reports, before the trial began, McConnell claimed that he was the impeachment of Bill Clinton as a model for the trial of Trump, leaving the question of calling witnesses until later in the process. McConnell went into the trial pretending that he wasn’t shutting out witnesses, and several Republicans—such as the always-willing-to-pretend-at-fairness Susan Collins—have indicated that they will consider the possibility of calling witnesses.
But the structure of the trial, as defined by McConnell’s passed-at-2-a.m. proposal, means that any witnesses called would come after the case is made by the House managers, and after the period of questioning and debate. So witnesses could appear, say their piece … and apparently leave without comment. During Tuesday’s long session, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff made it clear what McConnell’s trial structure really meant: “A vote to delay is a vote to deny," he said.
That’s not just the plain reading of the resolution that Republicans passed along party lines in the early morning Wednesday; it’s also exactly what McConnell has told his fellow senators in what CNN describes as “private meetings.” In addition to telling those senators that he wants no witnesses, McConnell has promised that if Democrats succeed in getting enough Republican votes to call someone such as John Bolton or Mick Mulvaney, McConnell will respond with flood-the-zone tactics, calling Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and others who are the subjects of right-wing conspiracy theories.
But, especially in light of the rigid voting on Tuesday night, McConnell seems confident that he won’t face that prospect. Instead, he expects to put a bow on the whole affair by this point next week … handing Donald Trump a chance to scream about exoneration without the threat of hearing from a single witness or facing a single document.