It looks now like the impeachment charges will be headed to the Senate in a few days. The Republican leader there, Mitch McConnell, has so far not shown any tendency to give in to popular demand for witnesses and documents.
And I think it's pretty obvious why.
If they manage to keep witnesses out, Republicans will necessarily take a political hit for appearing to be unfair in the Senate trial of the president.
But if witnesses are allowed, and sworn testimony absolutely makes the case for convicting Trump—and the Republicans acquit him anyway—it's going to look a lot worse for those folks.
It's all about the optics.
Heading into a trial without witnesses, the Republicans can pound away on their agreed-upon story: The House Democrats perpetrated a fraud on America by rushing to impeach Trump on shoddy evidence. According to their scenario, those never-Trumper Dems are doing their best to overturn the 2016 election.
(They have a long way to go. Even if they manage to pry Trump out of the White House, the Democrats would still have to get rid of pesky Mike Pence. Which actually might not be that hard. The man may be up to his eyebrows in the Ukraine thing.)
If the Republicans can get people to buy their premise, a Senate trial without witnesses can be promoted as the antidote to an unjust partisan hoax.
The Dems messed up, see? But we fixed it. We're American heroes!
The Republicans might even get some traction with this notion. It already makes sense to voters goofy enough to support Donald Trump. Don't bug 'em with the facts!
McConnell is in a hurry to right this perceived wrong, which is why a trial without witnesses is just the ticket. Get everything over in a hurry. Hell, those guys might even vote to dismiss the charges without the bother of a trial.
He wasn't always of this mind. McConnell stumped for witnesses twenty years ago, back in the Bill Clinton trial. In that case, the rules were agreed upon by all 100 senators. But that vote came after the start of the trial. McConnell wants to run things the same way this time: no agreement on witnesses until after the trial starts.
He says it wouldn't be fair to change the procedure, a position that might be just a bit disingenuous.
He may or may not have the votes to keep witnesses out, so we're going to have to wait to see how things go. In the weeks that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi kept the charges from migrating to the Senate, a number of things have cropped up. New or un-redacted emails, and so forth. Stuff that bolsters the charges.
Trump's former national security advisor, John Bolton, now says he'd be willing to testify. For his part, Trump says he'd be willing to stop that from happening.
For the greater good of future presidents, of course.
As Trump will tell you, he could not possibly benefit from quashing anybody's testimony. The man has done nothing wrong.
Just ask him.
Okay, you don't have to ask him. These days, it's the first thing out of his mouth. Doesn't matter what you're talking about.
You: Nice weather we're having.
Trump: I've done nothing wrong. Read the transcript. That call was perfect. The whole thing's a hoax. There was no crime.
Hey, if he says it often enough, it has to be true. Right?
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