WASHINGTON—Senators began their second and final day of questioning in President Trump’s impeachment trial, whose direction looks far from certain ahead of a pivotal vote on calling new witnesses.
The prosecution and defense teams have up to eight more hours on Thursday to make their cases for and against allowing the Senate to subpoena witnesses and documents. Four Republicans would need to join the 47 Democrats for the motion to pass, and GOP leaders have indicated in recent days they don’t yet have the votes to block the measure, though they have expressed more confidence in the past day.
“That’s where you enter the Wild West,” said Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.). “It’s totally unknown territory. And there’s a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability about what might happen next.”
If a simple majority of senators don’t agree to open the door to new evidence, the trial could end by Saturday. If they do agree to allow new evidence, senators could face a string of motions seeking testimony and records from specific people and agencies. There are a handful of senators on either side of the aisle who are in a position to swing these votes.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Thursday played down talk that Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, could step in to break a 50-50 tie over calling witnesses, saying Democrats remain focused on getting to 51 votes. It isn’t clear how Mr. Roberts would handle a 50-50 tally, and the Senate rules are silent on the matter.
“Right now our focus is on getting four Republicans,” said Mr. Schumer. “Shouldn’t have to rely on what the chief justice will or will not do.”
During President Clinton’s impeachment trial, Chief Justice William Rehnquist did his best to stay out of the fray, and Mr. Roberts so far has followed the Rehnquist model. He has interjected himself only rarely, once to admonish House managers and the Trump team during a heated late-night exchange.
Democratic House managers, acting as prosecutors, are arguing that senators should convict Mr. Trump for abusing his power by withholding nearly $400 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine as leverage for the country to open investigations that would aid his re-election efforts. The managers also accuse him of trying to cover up his alleged misconduct by obstructing congressional investigations into the matter.
In the first session of questioning Wednesday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers said Democrats’ case for impeachment was politically motivated and fell well short of the bar needed to remove a president from office, and argued that investigations into political rivals could be justified as in the public interest. Democratic lawmakers countered that they want to stop Mr. Trump from cheating to win re-election in November and argued that Republicans are holding Mr. Trump to an unusually low standard, and that their arguments open the door to corrupt behavior.
Mr. Trump has dismissed the impeachment process as a hoax and denies wrongdoing.
Democrats have intensified their calls for new witnesses following the leak of a manuscript by former national-security adviser John Bolton, in which Mr. Bolton wrote that the president told him he was freezing aid to Ukraine until the country helped with investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. Mr. Bolton has said he would testify if subpoenaed by the Senate. Mr. Trump has denied Mr. Bolton’s account.
On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) left open the possibility that the House could call Mr. Bolton to testify after the conclusion of the Senate impeachment trial. “I hope and I pray that the senators can handle the truth and will listen not only to John Bolton but other witnesses as well,” she said. “We’ll see what happens after that.”
It isn’t currently known whether Republicans will be able to muster the 51 votes necessary to block witnesses and documents. Mr. Thune, who, as GOP whip is responsible for counting votes for his party, said on Wednesday night that at this point, “it’s still uncertain.”
“We’re having discussions amongst ourselves but hopefully eventually we’ll get to a place where people feel comfortable making a definitive decision,” he said.
A reporter asked whether anything had changed since a closed-door meeting among Republican senators on Tuesday, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) told his GOP colleagues that they didn’t yet have to votes to block witnesses.
“There has been some kind of back and forth” since then, Mr. Thune said. “You know, the mood swings a little bit one way, based on whatever the latest news of the day is.”
Two GOP senators— Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine—are seen as likely to vote for witnesses, but other potential backers such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee have remained more neutral on the matter.
Mr. Schumer said Wednesday there are 10 to 12 Republican senators who haven’t said a negative thing about witnesses or documents and one of them could become the crucial GOP vote who tips the scales. “Any one of them is the possibility,” he said.
Mr. Schumer is confident that his party will have no defections on the vote on allowing witnesses, although whether Democrats will remain unified beyond that point is less certain.
Some centrist Democratic senators from states that voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 could split from their party on individual witness votes, which would take place only if the motion to allow more witnesses and documentation passes, or on the final vote on whether to remove Mr. Trump from office.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) said Wednesday that he would support both Democratic witness requests and a motion to subpoena Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Democrat Sen. Doug Jones, who faces a tough re-election battle in Alabama, has said that Hunter Biden isn’t relevant. Both Messrs. Jones and Manchin have said that they will consider the articles of impeachment separately and could split their votes.
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Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.), who has supported all of Democrats’ requests for witnesses and documents so far, hasn’t indicated that she is leaning either way on calling the Bidens or on removing Mr. Trump.
Even if one or two Democrats cross the aisle, Mr. Schumer said on Wednesday that Hunter Biden isn’t relevant in the case and he doesn’t believe Mr. McConnell has the votes to subpoena him. “They don’t want to because they know it would make it a circus,” he said.
On Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said if Democrats get to call witnesses, Republicans will call Hunter Biden.
The younger Biden served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, while his father was vice president.
Mr. Trump and his allies have said it was corrupt for the elder Mr. Biden to seek the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor who had once investigated the company where his son sat on the board. Mr. Biden sought the prosecutor’s removal while he was vice president as part of a broad international effort to combat corruption in Ukraine. His actions had the support of the Obama administration and U.S. allies.
Both Bidens have denied wrongdoing. Hunter Biden has said it was poor judgment to serve on the Burisma board—a position for which he was paid about $50,000 a month—while his father was involved with Ukraine policy.
—Andrew Duehren and Natalie Andrews contributed to this article.
Write to Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com and Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus@wsj.com
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2020-01-30 18:20:00Z
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