Senator Lamar Alexander this week at the Capitol. He was one of four Republicans considered critical to the question of whether to call witnesses.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, said late Thursday that although he believed that Democrats have proved their case that President Trump had acted inappropriately in his dealings with Ukraine, he did not think the presidents actions were impeachable and he would vote against considering new evidence in the impeachment trial.
The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did, he said in a statement. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday.
Mr. Alexanders statement is a strong indication that Republicans have lined up the votes to block a call for more witnesses and documents.
I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitutions high bar for an impeachable offense, Mr. Alexander said.
His opposition is a significant victory for Republican leaders. Though not all senators have announced their intentions, the vast majority of Republicans are expected to vote on Friday against allowing new evidence, and Mr. Alexander was a critical swing vote.
His announcement indicated that Republicans had fallen in line to push the trial into its final phase reaching a verdict that is all but certain to be Mr. Trumps acquittal without delay.
It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation, Mr. Alexander said.
Democrats would need four Republicans to join them in voting for a motion to consider additional witnesses and documentary requests. But so far, only two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah, have indicated they will do so.
A fourth possible Republican swing vote, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has yet to announce her decision. Both parties deemed it nearly impossible that any other Republican senator would defect.
Mr. Alexander met privately with Ms. Murkowski earlier Thursday evening when the trial broke for dinner.
Mr. Alexander, a former education secretary and presidential candidate, is set to retire at the end of the year.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said late Thursday that she would vote in favor of considering additional witnesses and documents in the impeachment trial of President Trump.
I believe hearing from certain witnesses would give each side the opportunity to more fully and fairly make their case, resolve any ambiguities, and provide additional clarity, she said in a statement released shortly after the trial adjourned for the day. Therefore, I will vote in support of the motion to allow witnesses and documents to be subpoenaed.
Democrats would need four Republicans to side with them on Friday to demand new witnesses and documents. Ms. Collins had strongly signaled that she would vote in favor of admitting new evidence. Her statement makes her the second Republican to confirm she will do so, after Senator Mitt Romney of Utah.
Ms. Collins said that if a majority of senators indeed vote on Friday to allow witnesses, she would propose that the House managers and presidents defense lawyers try to agree to a limited and equal number of witnesses for each side. If they fail, she said senators should choose the number of witnesses.
If a vote on hearing witnesses ends in a tie, it could fall to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to decide what happens next.
When a vote on any motion ends in a tie, the motion fails. So one outcome in that scenario is that Chief Justice Roberts does nothing, and thats the end of the matter.
However, a precedent from the first presidential impeachment trial the unsuccessful effort to remove Andrew Johnson in 1868 would also seem to give Chief Justice Roberts the option of breaking the tie.
The Senates general rules for impeachment trials are silent about what happens in a tie and whether the chief justice may cast tiebreaking votes on procedural motions, and the current version of them last revised in 1986 still does not address that question. A resolution that the Senate approved this month laying out specific procedures for the Trump trial is also silent on ties.
But Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, who presided over the Johnson trial, twice cast tiebreaking votes on procedural motions, which therefore both passed. (On a third tie, Mr. Chase abstained, so that motion failed.)
To be sure, both of the procedural motions that Chief Justice Chase voted on were far less momentous than calling Mr. Bolton as a witness would be: They involved whether the Senate should take a short break and adjourn for the day.
Some senators in 1868 believed that Chief Justice Chase lacked that power under the Constitution and moved to declare his intervention null. But the Senate voted down the objection, creating a precedent that chief justices do have tiebreaking power in impeachment trials, just as vice presidents have tiebreaking power in votes on legislation and nominations.
In the only other presidential impeachment trial against Bill Clinton in 1999 Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist cast no tiebreaking votes; the issue never came up.
John Warner, a Republican elder statesman who served for 30 years in the Senate, called on his fellow Republicans on Thursday night to bring relevant witnesses and documents into President Trumps impeachment trial.
As a lifelong Republican and retired member of the U.S. Senate, who once served as a juror in a presidential impeachment trial, I am mindful of the difficult responsibilities those currently serving now shoulder, Mr. Warner, 92, wrote in a statement.
I respectfully urge the Senate to be guided by the rules of evidence and follow our nations norms, precedents and institutions to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law by welcoming relevant witnesses and documents as part of this impeachment trial, he added.
Mr. Warner, a five-term senator from Virginia and one of Congresss most influential voices on the war in Iraq, declined to seek re-election in 2008, and was succeeded by Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat who is of no relation.
A centrist who often worked across party lines, the elder Mr. Warner led the Senate Armed Services Committee, served as secretary of the Navy and was long known as one of the Senates old bulls the guardians of its institutions.
His statement, distributed by Mark Warners Senate office, harked back to another era in the Capitol.
Not long ago, senators of both major parties always worked to accommodate fellow colleagues with differing points of view to arrive at outcomes that would best serve the nations interests, he wrote. If witnesses are suppressed in this trial and a majority of Americans are left believing the trial was a sham, I can only imagine the lasting damage done to the Senate, and to our fragile national consensus.
It started when Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, said, With the greatest respect, if the Senate can just decide theres no executive privilege, guess what? Youre destroying executive privilege.
Then Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the lead Democratic House manager, snapped back: It may be different in the court than it is in this chamber and in the House, but when anybody begins a sentence with the phrase, I have the greatest respect for, you have to look out for what follows.
Enter Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who asked the next question: I sent a question to the desk on behalf of myself and Senators Capito and Scott of South Carolina with all due respect.
There was laughter in the chamber.
In his next response, Mr. Cipollone struck back. I wont respond to the ad hominem attacks that keep coming, he said. I will just say, for the record: Youre right, I havent been elected to anything, but when I say the greatest respect, I mean it.
For those keeping track, Senators John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, and Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, asked the third bipartisan question of the trial.
The two men wanted to know how the trial verdict would alter the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches.
In 1999, there was only one bipartisan question asked over the two days of questioning.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who is weighing whether to join Democrats in voting to hear witnesses in President Trumps impeachment trial, may have tipped her hand Thursday evening with a pointed question for Mr. Trumps defense team: Why should this body not call Ambassador Bolton?
Ms. Murkowski was referring to John R. Bolton, the presidents former national security adviser, whose coming book contradicts Mr. Trump on the question at the heart of the impeachment trial: whether the president withheld military aid from Ukraine until that countrys leaders investigated his political rivals.
Mr. Boltons draft manuscript says the aid was conditioned on the investigations. Mr. Trump has said it was not. Given that discrepancy, Ms. Murkowski pushed the presidents team to explain why Mr. Bolton should not be called.
A deputy White House counsel, Patrick Philbin, did not directly address whether Mr. Bolton could settle the matter.
Instead, he replied on procedural grounds, saying that pursuing Mr. Bolton was the job of the House, which did not subpoena him. If the Senate does so, he argued, it would do great damage to the Senate by effectively turning it into the investigative body that the framers expected the House to be.
Whatever is accepted in this case becomes the new normal for every impeachment proceeding in the future, he said.
Ms. Murkowski is one of four Republicans the others are Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee who have indicated that they are open to expanding the scope of the trial to include witnesses and new documents. Democrats need the votes of four Republicans to do so.
Four Democratic presidential candidates hoping for breakout performances in the Iowa caucuses next week spent Thursday in Washington listening to questioning in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump.
But the president himself headed to Des Moines for a rally to fire up his supporters before the caucuses on Monday. It was his second rally in three nights this week; he spoke Tuesday in Wildwood, N.J.
Mr. Trump told a raucous crowd of supporters Thursday night that they had a front row seat to the lunacy and the madness of a totally sick left.
Mr. Trump tried to belittle his Democratic opponents with the nicknames he has become famous for, referring to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. as Sleepy Joe, and Senator Bernie Sanders as Crazy Bernie. He poked fun, multiple times, at the pronunciation of the surname of the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., Pete Buttigieg.
But Mr. Trumps focus on the Democratic field in front of him appeared to be divided by his political enemies of the past and his foils in Congress.
While we are proudly creating jobs and killing terrorists, congressional Democrats are consumed with partisan rage and obsessed with a witch-hunt hoax, he said. We are having probably the best years we have ever had in the history of our country. And I just got impeached. Can you believe these people? They impeach Trump.
Jay Sekulow, one of the presidents lawyers, has made a simple case to the senators: The president is under attack, and they must defend him.
As he describes it, the impeachment inquiry is just the latest iteration of relentless efforts by the presidents enemies to undercut and unseat him. Like the F.B.I.s investigation of whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election, Mr. Sekulow argues, the impeachment investigation has been misguided and deeply unfair.
On Thursday, Mr. Sekulow again raised his favorite example: how the F.B.I. misled a federal court so it could secretly eavesdrop on a former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court last month severely criticized mistakes and omissions in the F.B.I.s applications to surveil Mr. Page.
Mr. Sekulow argued that the Page case showed that the president was right to question the assessment of the nations intelligence officials about foreign interference in the 2016 election and to listen instead to people he trusted, like his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani.
That argument is sure to appeal to Mr. Trump, who takes every opportunity to rail against federal and congressional investigations that have dogged him since he took office. Whether senators see as on point is another question.
Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said his wife, Franki, fielded a number of calls on Wednesday from people who wanted to express their anger at the president.
Mr. Roberts lamented the starkly partisan nature of the trial, saying he did not remember it being so bad during the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton. The mood at the time was not as harsh, as full as animus with regards to the president, Mr. Roberts said.
Still, he shared a moment of levity as he headed into lunch before the session on Thursday: Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, walked by and stopped to shake hands and banter before a gaggle of reporters. Its not true that you have to be bald to be named Patrick, joked Mr. Leahy, who is bald. The man speaketh the truth, said Mr. Roberts, who is also bald.
Were part of the octogenarian club, added Mr. Roberts, who is 83. Almost for me! said Mr. Leahy, who is 79.
After Mr. Leahy stepped away, Mr. Roberts reflected further on the divided state of the Congress, and the country. I hope we can get out of here and get back to work, he said. Thats the best thing we can do.
Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and a potential swing vote over whether to call witnesses, asked his first question of the impeachment trial on Thursday with Senators Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and Steve Daines, Republican of Montana.
Mr. Alexander asked the House impeachment managers to outline the differences in bipartisanship between the Nixon impeachment and the Trump impeachment.
Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and a veteran of all three presidential impeachments, stood to answer the question. But she did not specify the vote margins in the current impeachment inquiry.
After Mr. Alexander conferred with Republican staff, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, asked the presidents defense lawyers to respond to the question. That also signaled Mr. McConnells first question.
When one of the lawyers initially referred to Mr. Alexander as Senator Lamar, he chuckled, replying, Thats O.K.
After five hours of questioning, senators broke for a 45-minute dinner break at 6:39 p.m. Eastern. Over the last two days, nearly 150 questions have been asked.
Senator Elizabeth Warren called John G. Roberts Jr.s legitimacy as chief justice into question while inquiring about the possibility of witness testimony during President Trumps impeachment trial.Credit...Image by Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, sent a particularly pointed question for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to read aloud in the Senate chamber.
Does the fact that the chief justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court and the Constitution? she asked of the House managers.
Stunned gasps and oohs filled the chamber from senators and spectators alike as Mr. Roberts finished reading the question, with little emotion on his face.
Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the lead House impeachment manager, said in response that Chief Justice Roberts had presided admirably over the proceedings.
As Republicans grow increasingly confident that they have the votes to block calling new witnesses and evidence, Democrats have turned to Chief Justice Roberts as a potential savior for their cause: If there is a tie, it could fall to the chief justice to decide whether to break it.
Progressive activists have also begun to criticize the chief justice, with one group, Demand Justice, photoshopping a Make America Great Again hat on him in a video it circulated on Twitter.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman worked hand in hand in Ukraine last year to help Rudolph W. Giuliani dig up damaging information about President Trumps political rivals, an effort at the center of the impeachment trial.
But in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, their recent split was on display as a dispute erupted between lawyers for the two men, both Soviet-born businessmen, over the extent of Mr. Parnass cooperation with impeachment investigators.
The dispute stemmed from Mr. Parnass decision to share a trove of his text messages and other records with the House Intelligence Committee, even though he and Mr. Fruman both face criminal campaign finance charges in Manhattan. The committee publicly released some of the records in recent weeks, shedding new light on the pressure campaign and generating momentum among Democrats to call Mr. Parnas as a witness in the impeachment trial.
Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Mr. Fruman, raised concerns afterward that Mr. Parnas produced records to the House that might be protected under attorney-client privilege. As such, Mr. Blanche petitioned the judge presiding over the criminal case to order Mr. Parnass lawyer, Joseph A. Bondy, to seek to claw back some of the records from Congress.
Mr. Bondy declined, and defending his decision to release the records, he explained that, What we tried to do was get all this evidence quickly to the House, before the trial ended.
Judge J. Paul Oetken, while acknowledging that Mr. Blanche raised legitimate concerns, effectively sided with Mr. Bondy, who argued that Mr. Blanche did not object promptly and that such a retrieval was now unrealistic. Instead of recovering the documents, Mr. Bondy agreed to ask House investigators to not publicly release any records involving communications with certain lawyers.
The back-and-forth between the lawyers, which at one point grew heated as they accused each other of acting improperly, reflected a larger split between Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman after their arrest in October. While Mr. Parnas broke with Mr. Giuliani and vowed to cooperate with Congress, and even with prosecutors if they are interested, Mr. Fruman has kept quiet and remains aligned with Mr. Giuliani.
Mr. Bondy indicated at the hearing that he might continue to release some of Mr. Parnass nonprivileged records, whether the House does or not.
Shortly before the hearing, Mr. Bondy released a new recording of Mr. Trump meeting in April 2018 with a small group of donors, including Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman. It was the latest step in Mr. Parnass recent publicity tour as he seeks to be called as a witness in the impeachment trial, even as the criminal indictment looms in federal court in Manhattan.
We approached this case a little differently, Mr. Bondy noted during the hearing.
When she testified before a House committee last year, Fiona Hill, a former top national security official, warned lawmakers not to twist her words to try to legitimize an unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine, like Russia, undertook a concerted campaign to interfere in the election.
But on Thursday, the presidents legal team seemed to ignore that warning.
President Trumps lawyers are trying mightily to convince the senators that he had some reason to suspect Ukraine of meddling in the 2016 election. That helps them portray the presidents demand that Ukraine investigate the issue as rooted in a legitimate concern, not merely a desire for his own political gain.
Patrick Philbin, one of Mr. Trumps lawyers, noted that Ms. Hill had testified that some Ukrainian officials had bet on the wrong horse in 2016 and sought to curry favor with Hillary Clinton in the hope that she would beat Mr. Trump.
But he omitted the rest of what she said: Officials in other countries did the same thing, without inciting Mr. Trumps displeasure. The difference here, however, is that hasnt had any major impact on his feelings toward those countries, Ms. Hill testified at the time.
He also failed to mention that the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, said bluntly last month: We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 election.
Hours after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. rejected an attempt to name the individual believed to be the whistle-blower whose complaint spurred the impeachment inquiry, a group of Republican senators made a second attempt to ask about the origins of the accusations against President Trump.
As the second afternoon of questioning during the impeachment trial wore on, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and a group of more than a dozen other Republicans asked about news reports about a former National Security Council aide who now works for the Democratic staff of the House Intelligence Committee, and his relationship with someone alleged to be the whistle-blower, as well as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the Ukraine expert on the National Security Council who testified in the impeachment inquiry.
Mr. Trumps defenders have asserted that all three were part of a conspiracy to remove Mr. Trump from office.
Earlier, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, had tried without success to ask about the trio, but Chief Justice Roberts refused to read his question aloud because it contained the name of the person believed to be the whistle-blower. Mr. Paul quickly left the Senate chamber and revealed the name at a televised news conference and on Twitter.
Hours later, the group led by Mr. Johnson had more success by leaving out that name, and simply referring to the person as an individual alleged as the whistle-blower.
But Democrats still took umbrage at the mention of the whistle-blower, and the suggestion that one of their aides conspired with the individual to try to bring down the president.
I will not dignify those smears on my staff by giving them any credence whatsoever, Representative Adam B. Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said in an angry response.
He added that he would not jeopardize the whistle-blowers privacy, telling senators, I worry that future people that see wrongdoing are going to watch how this person has been treated, the threats against this persons life and theyre going to say, Why stick my neck out?
Patrick Philbin, a deputy White House counsel, has quickly emerged as one of President Trumps leading defenders on the Senate floor, jumping up to answer some of the most pointed questions from senators. His last name quickly drew jokes about whether Mr. Trump, with his love of television, confused the lawyer with the television host who shares the same surname but his background is in fact far more significant.
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Day in Impeachment: Alexander Says Democrats Proved Their Case, But Its Not Impeachable - The New York Times