WASHINGTON — The Senate on Friday blocked efforts by Democrats, joined by Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, to hear new witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, setting up the all but certain acquittal of the president next week.
Romney and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine each stood when their names were called and voted “aye” with 47 Democrats. Utah Sen. Mike Lee was among the prevailing 51 Republican votes that nixed what became the most contentious issue in the trial.
Romney had no comment following the vote, his spokeswoman saying he had nothing to add to his earlier statements that testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton would have answered key questions about the allegations against the president.
In a tweet following the vote, Lee lauded Romney for taking a personal stand on the witness issue.
“We have disagreed about a lot in this trial. But he has my respect for the thoughtfulness, integrity, and guts he has shown throughout this process. Utah and the Senate are lucky to have him,” Lee wrote.
While Romney wanted to hear testimony from Bolton, Lee and other Republicans said they had heard enough.
“No new witness would change or contradict” the facts underlying the case against Trump, Lee said in a statement. “That is why I voted to move on without hearing from additional witnesses. Like any other trial court, the Senate — here sitting as a court of impeachment — has both the authority and the obligation to decline to hold a full trial where the material facts of the case are not in dispute.”
Utah Congressman Chris Stewart, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee that investigated Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, echoed the GOP sentiment that more evidence wouldn’t have changed the eventual outcome.
“The Democrats have failed to make their case and it is time for them, and the rest of the country, to move on from this impeachment charade,” Stewart said.
The House impeached Trump on a nearly party-line vote last month, charging him with abuse of power for allegedly pressuring Ukraine to conduct investigations that would benefit him politically. The second article of impeachment accuses Trump of obstructing Congress during the House investigation into his dealings with Ukraine.
Trump is the third president to be tried by the Senate. No president has been convicted and removed from office, and Trump is also expected to be cleared by Republicans holding a 53-47 majority. It would take 67 votes to convict him.
Senators huddled after the witness vote, then returned and set a vote on the final verdict for next week rather than Saturday. The trial will resume Monday for final arguments, with time Monday and Tuesday for senators to speak. The final vote will be Wednesday, the day after Trump’s State of the Union speech.
The next steps also come amid the campaign season. Democratic caucus voting begins Monday in Iowa, and four of the candidates have had to sit through the trial rather than campaign. But other reasons for the new schedule were attorneys wanted more time to prepare their final arguments and some senators wanted an opportunity to explain their votes.
With Trump’s acquittal never in doubt, the question of introducing new witnesses and documents in the Senate’s impeachment trial became the primary focus for Democrats and the most difficult dispute for Republicans to resolve.
Republicans were unified early on to deal with the witness question later in the trial. They rejected repeated attempts by the Democratic minority to approve subpoenas for witnesses and documents on the trial’s second day.
The issue simmered, however, as Romney, Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, made it known they could vote with Democrats to call for additional witnesses and documents when the issue resurfaced after opening arguments and questions. Several other Republicans were noncommittal on witnesses.
But the issue boiled early, following a New York Times story on Bolton’s forthcoming book that undermined Trump’s defense that the investigations were not tied to military aid. Bolton wrote that Trump told him last summer the military aid to Ukraine would be frozen until the investigations into Joe Biden happened. On Friday, another Times story on the manuscript revealed Trump asked Bolton to get involved in the Ukraine affair in May.
The revelation from Bolton prompted Romney, who had been relatively quiet during the first week of the trial, to speak out to the press and make a forceful plea during a private GOP lunch that Bolton should testify. The former ambassador could resolve a contention that both sides argued to their advantage: the House impeachment hearings heard from no firsthand witnesses to Trump’s dealings on Ukraine.
“I have some questions ... that I think John Bolton may be able to provide information on, and I’d like him to be able to tell us,” Romney told the Deseret News earlier this week.
But the freshman senator said he made his point and wasn’t lobbying anyone to join him, nor was anybody in the GOP conference or the White House asking him to stand down.
“I can only tell you where I am,” Romney said on Wednesday. “I’m sure there’ll be others. How many that will be on my side of the aisle, I just don’t know.”
Turned out there was just one: Collins.
After Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., warned his conference late Tuesday that he didn’t have the votes to block calling witnesses, those wavering on the issue came on board. And when Murkowski and Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander said they would vote against witnesses, the fate of the Democrats’ quest for new evidence was sealed.
“To not allow a witness, a document — no witnesses, no documents — in an impeachment trial is a perfidy,” said a disappointed Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “America will remember this day, unfortunately, where the Senate did not live up to its responsibilities, where the Senate turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial.”
But Schumer and Democrats were not done after the witness vote. They introduced a series of amendments to subpoena witnesses and documents that were defeated on party-line votes, except for the two that would call Bolton to testify. Romney and Collins voted with Democrats on those motions.
