Seems to me if nothing’s gonna get you the votes to convict, might as well get it over with and have Committees call witnesses as part of 1/6 investigation so Senate can pass COVID relief on schedule, then quickly get GOP to block voting rights bill to prompt filibuster nuke.
The trial was about seeing the impeachment process through to its finish. The evidence already presented was overwhelming. Most Republicans had already committed to “doesn’t matter, trial’s unconstitutional” as failsafe escape. Witnesses wouldn’t change that.
If the point is accountability, committee hearings can do that. Especially if they’re to factfind for the purposes of, say, a 14th Amendment Section 3 resolution against Trump, which would only require a majority vote:
If the point of calling witnesses at the impeachment trial is to keep Trump’s role in the Jan 6 insurrection alive in the public’s mind...well, remember all those committee hearings a couple years ago that got wall-to-wall coverage?
Seems to me Republicans have already given Dems plenty of material to use against them, so I’m not at all sold on this notion that Dems blinked or played into Mitch’s hands or whatever by not calling witnesses now
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Note that this case only exists bc people got mad when SCOTUS OK’d execution of a Muslim without an imam by his side in a state that only provided Christian pastors so SCOTUS stopped a state with similar rules from executing a Buddhist, and so those states just barred all clergy
Ambitious Senators' greatest refuge is also their worst fear: no one will ever remember them or what they do unless they become President.
And should they become President, no one will ever remember what they said or did as Senators.
All's to say: how any Senator votes on this impeachment trial won't haunt their historical record because, well, history will forget them. Instead, they will vote based on present political considerations and/or personal sense of right and wrong.
"The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken. They've all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our Republic forever."
McConnell: "The election actually was not unusually close. Just in recent history, 1976, 2000, and 2004 were all closer than this one. The electoral college margin is almost identical to what it was in 2016."
Trump on his SCOTUS noms: "They rule against me so much. You know why? Because the story is I haven't spoken to any of them since virtually they got in. But the story is they're my puppet...they hate that it's not good on the social circuit..."
I also wouldn’t be surprised if Biden nominates SCOCA Justice Leondra Kruger for SG to better position her for Breyer’s seat, too. It’s what Obama did with Elena Kagan and LBJ with Thurgood Marshall.
KBJ and Kruger have been the clear frontrunners for Biden's big campaign promise