Showalter quotes Axios re the witness rules:
Details: Under the resolution, House Democratic managers and Trump's defense team will each be given up to 24 hours over two days to present their cases.
- Senators will then have 16 hours to submit their questions to Chief Justice John Roberts.
- After the Q&A period, the Senate will vote on whether to consider and debate witness subpoenas.
- If the Senate votes no, no one will be permitted to call for new witnesses or documents, according to a Republican leadership aide.
- If the Senate votes yes, both sides will have an opportunity to motion to subpoena witnesses, then senators will debate and vote on them.
- Then the Senate will vote on whether to convict the president and remove him from office.
As Showalter summarizes:
Hear that, Dems? You all can pick whether you want witnesses to testify, any witnesses you like, but if you do, you'll have to let the Republican majority do the same. Even-steven. That's a dilemma.
That's a dilemma because that's not how Dems play. We wouldn't be at this point if it were, as we saw throughout the House Impeachment Theater.
Consider the scenario Showalter draws out for us:
[The Dems] can have all the Bolton they like, but Republicans will be allowed to issue equal subpoenas to all the people Adam Schiff nixxed earlier - Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Eric Ciaramella, Schiff himself, John Brennan, James Comey, Alexandra Chalupa, a host of Ukrainian officials, maybe even the Ukrainian prime minister who says Trump did nothing wrong, all the people they wanted to call earlier.
If Democrats are hungry for Bolton, Republicans are even hungrier for all these witnesses they couldn't call the first time around.
The GOP witness wish list could only expose the whole Democrat-plotted rigging operation. It could expose the foundations of the whole slimey planned scam against Trump from the get-go. Sure, the Democrats could get their Magic Bolton. But then they'll have to choose between him and all the witnesses they don't want to see on the stands.
It goes to show that Cocaine Mitch knows how to deal and he's opted for the cleverest of solutions, giving the Democrats exactly what they want .... good and hard.
Read it all.
UPDATE: For anyone who hasn't seen this interview with John Ratcliffe is very good. Ratcliffe states among MANY other things that he expects a short trial, no witnesses called, and an early acquittal. Listen to him--this guy knows what he's talking about:
And stakes are getting higher for the Democrats:
ReplyDeleteBook Excerpt “Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite,”
How five members of Joe Biden’s family got rich through his connections vi the New York Post
I thought I was pretty cynical politically, but I thought the US was pretty clean from a corruption view point. The me from Fifteen Years ago would think the current me is in tin foil hat territory. This type of enriching politician relatives, sweet heart deals to Democratic Donors (Solandra), (Solyndra), Fast and Furious Scandal, media bias, and the deep state anti Trump efforts are mind blowing. Good news is all this stuff is mostly coming out.
I think you and I and many others are having the same reaction. We didn't think we were naive, but now we realize that it's far worse than we imagined.
DeleteYes, although I have followed politics since I was 14, I now see just how corrupt we are. All the money that we have wasted from the middle class working class to the entitled rich and the shiftless poor.
DeleteI am proud to say that I did see the Reps were fakes and quit the party in 2006. I used to admire W. Bush but see what a failed president he was. He's almost as bad as Clinton and Obama.
I am listening to Schumer talk via your embedded video of John Ratcliffe on Fox. Wouldn't it be great if every time that Schiff, Nadler, Pelosi or Schumer spoke, a laugh track would play in the background.
I hope I'm wrong, but if it does go to witnesses, I just think that too much of the Republican side of the Senate is too swampy and too deep statey to allow anything like the Republican witness list Showalter gives us a taste of.
ReplyDeleteThe question of witnesses is still interesting, though, since Democrats will have to say Trump is covering up his guilt by not wanting witnesses but will then have to cover up their own guilt by saying they too will vote against witnesses if it means the President gets to call Hunter Biden, Eric Ciaramella, etc.
While the cynic in me says Dems will ultimately agree de facto to no witnesses and rely on their 24/7 lie-and-attack machine to pin the blame on the President, my predictions are regularly wrong, so who knows?
My view is that McConnell wants to acquit without witnesses. Partly so Bernie can get back on the campaign trail, partly to dispose of this, and then maybe also for reasons that Trump's lawyers and Barr may have in mind.
DeleteAdam Schiff is now giving his own opening statement to a gaggle of newsers, saying that McConnell’s plan is totally unlike the Clinton “model”. And Nadler follows on saying that the Clinton trial doesn’t make any difference. It should be a regular trial with witnesses and evidence, just like a trial for a bank robber. Using the media to hold their own pretrial trial...
DeleteI think the Dems are delusional if they really think Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler can move public opinion.
DeleteNicely put, and I have zero argument against any of it. And of course if the pre-witnesses phase goes well enough, it gets a lot easier to move straight to a vote. What I think would be bad would be Dems screaming they want witnesses (even if they really don't), but what we get is a party-line vote against that; or moving to witnesses but not getting the good ones - like the Bidens, Ciaramella, Schiff, ICIG Atkison, etc.
DeleteBut again, if the first part's a blowout for Trump, then it's hard to argue with a "quit while you're ahead" mentality.
PS: If Barr has good reasons for wanting this thing done and over with asap, I think you're totally right that that should and will carry a lot of weight in everyone's behind the scenes thinking.
Hmmmmm.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/GregRubini/status/1219681476419227650
No wonder Schumer’s grouchy and vindictive.... PDJT is taller, has more hair and a lot more power, and has a gorgeous wife...
DeleteI feel guilty that only a small part of me feels bad about laughing at this. I don't know who Greg Rubini really is, but he is hilarious.
DeleteGina
Cocaine Mitch delivers a masterstroke. I actually would like to see the Senate call witnesses and get Sleepy Joe, Hunter, Pencil Neck, Nadler and Ciaramella on the stand.
ReplyDeleteThe President has taught the Reps how to fight like men.
I think that's true.
Delete