Here's a thing.
I've refrained from speculating about whether the trial's going to call witnesses or not because the facts, as I have seen them, are these:
1. The Republicans are 100% unified in throwing this thing over the back fence.
2. They can't control what comes out.
I've refrained from speculating about whether the trial's going to call witnesses or not because the facts, as I have seen them, are these:
1. The Republicans are 100% unified in throwing this thing over the back fence.
2. They can't control what comes out.
If Bolton's book winds up being the tipping point that forces their hand (and before anyone says "It's got to be, how could they not call witnesses now?" the answer is very simple: by not doing so), it might seem obvious and inevitable that it would always have been so.
It was basically inevitable that more stuff would come out. The Senate GOP has been gambling on the timing. Ideally the worst stuff comes out after the trial is wrapped up so they can say they didn't know, but not, like, right around the election.
Except, of course, it might actually work out better for them if it comes out in October because then they can try to dismiss it as an October surprise and go "If this was true why are we only hearing about it now?"
Honestly, what they're really waiting for is for Trump to successfully seize enough power that none of this matters. That's what they're holding on for. At first some of them at least were hoping to outlast him, that he'd self-destruct or resign or be taken out by some means.
But at this point they have to know that if he's not on the top of the ticket, no matter the reason, they lose his base. Their party fractures. They can't win.
So the GOP plan at this point is to hope that Trump becomes enough of a force that he can suspend or overturn an election on bluster, or that his friends and allies successfully rig the ballot box, or that he otherwise becomes invincible because they can't win without him.
Which isn't far off from what their endgame has always been! Single party rule, guaranteed protected majority so they don't have to worry about demographic shifts or the unpopularity of their policies. Trump just sped up the timeline past the point they deemed prudent.
So for my money, the only way they crack and call witnesses, much less convict and remove Trump, is if they see the doors are closing too quickly and they're convinced he won't make it to November with the power he needs.
When and if they see their choices as "Go down with him for certain." vs. "Try to survive the almost certain destruction of his downfall", they'll choose the latter. Until then, they will prop him up under the theory that his survival is their survival.
Trump's base and his power to harness his own wrath are what they fear her. Not the voters. Not Russia.
