Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) also floated a possible censure of Trump as a lesser punishment than removal, arguing that a bipartisan condemnation would be more effective than a failed partisan vote to remove the president. He conceded, however, that his proposal isn’t likely to get much traction.
What’s happening Tuesday?
Senators will continue to deliberate publicly in the chamber. And President Donald Trump will deliver his State of the Union address at 9 p.m., where GOP senators are hoping he’ll avoid talk of impeachment.
7:01 P.M.
The five senators who might break with their party in Trump’s trial
There will be no witnesses. The House managers and White House counsel have rested their cases. And President Donald Trump is going to be acquitted on Wednesday. But there’s still drama left to the impeachment trial.
A quintet of senators are up in the air on whether to convict or acquit the president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Those votes won’t affect whether Trump is removed from office, but they will recast the reputations of these senators for years to come and help shape the battle for the White House in November. Read the full story. — Burgess Everett
5:14 P.M.
Manchin proposes lesser punishment of censure for Trump
Sen. Joe Manchin is floating the less severe punishment of censure of President Donald Trump’s conduct, although the West Virginia Democrat acknowledges it’s unlikely to go anywhere with the GOP.
In a floor speech on Monday, Manchin said he remains undecided on whether to vote to convict or acquit Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and said “what the president did was wrong” in soliciting foreign intervention against Joe Biden and delaying Ukraine aid.
But Manchin also said that with no path to 67 votes for removing Trump from office, a bipartisan rebuke would be more effective than a partisan vote. Read the full story. — Burgess Everett
4:31 P.M.
‘Is there one among you?’: Schiff seeks single GOP ‘guilty’ vote in closing pitch
Adam Schiff knows the Senate is not going to remove President Donald Trump from office.
So the House’s lead impeachment prosecutor tailored his final pitch toward the small group of Republican senators who have expressed an open mind to the case — pleading at least for a symbolically bipartisan vote to convict the president of the United States on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress charges. Read the full story. — Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney
3:51 P.M.
Republicans urge Trump to shun impeachment in SOTU
Senate Republicans are praying President Donald Trump does something out of character during his State of the Union address — avoid talking about impeachment.
Trump will deliver his speech Tuesday, one day before the Senate ends its nearly three-week impeachment trial with a likely vote to acquit him. While the president is all but assured to take a victory lap Wednesday, Senate Republicans don’t want the State of the Union to turn into the type of speech he’d deliver at a campaign rally.
“My advice would be that in the State of the Union he should move on,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). “The president’s got a good record when you look at the economy and lower taxes and fewer regulations and higher incomes and I think he’d be well advised to focus on that and let the impeachment trial speak for itself.” Read the full story. — Marianne LeVine
3:14 P.M.
‘Midnight in Washington’
The closing arguments have finished in Trump’s trial. And Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) left Republican senators with a warning that a deluge of new evidence is poised to emerge in the Ukraine saga, even if they follow through with their plans to acquit Trump.
„It is midnight in Washington,“ Schiff said, a refrain he repeatedly returned to as he argued that the Senate ignored new evidence at its own peril. „How did we get here?“
Schiff argued that a Senate acquittal — a decision to leave the matter to the 2020 election — would risk endangering that election to a president who has solicited foreign interference in 2016 and 2020. Read the full story. — Kyle Cheney and Andrew Desiderio
1:31 P.M.
Trump has the votes for Senate acquittal
A Senate vote to convict President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial is now a mathematical impossibility.
More than 34 senators have indicated they intend to acquit the president, or have declared the House’s two impeachment charges against him to be insufficient to merit a conviction, according to a POLITICO analysis of public comments and official statements from Republican senators, as well as confirmation from Senate aides about their boss’ intentions.
Those declarations confirm what was already expected: that supporters of Trump’s conviction will fall short of the two-thirds majority required to remove the president from office. Read the full story. — Kyle Cheney, Andrew Desiderio, John Bresnahan
10:46 A.M.
Dr. Jill Biden: Lindsey Graham’s Trump-era transformation ‘a little hurtful’
Dr. Jill Biden on Friday called Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Trump-era transformation „a little bit hurtful,“ lamenting the South Carolina senator’s shift from a onetime friend to one of President Donald Trump’s top attack dogs accusing the former second family’s son of wrongdoing in Ukraine.
The former second lady said the Bidens and Graham used to be „great friends,“ traveling together with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when former Vice President Joe Biden was a long-serving senator from Delaware. But she said the South Carolina senator, a staunch Trump ally, has changed. Read the full story. — Myah Ward
10:29 A.M.
Closing arguments launch as Trump’s trial winds down
House Democrats and President Donald Trump’s legal team will make their final pitches on Monday to a Republican-controlled Senate that has all but decided the president will be acquitted later this week.
Monday’s closing arguments in the nearly three-week impeachment trial are little more than a formality, given the Senate’s party-line decision Friday to shut down the pursuit of new witnesses or evidence to bolster the House’s case that Trump abused his power and obstructed the impeachment inquiry. Read the full story. — Kyle Cheney and Andrew Desiderio
7:59 A.M.
Impeachment is almost over. Ukraine isn’t.
Yes, the impeachment process ends this week; but the Ukraine scandal is likely far from over.
Case in point: it remains possible that former national security adviser John Bolton tells his story before the release of his book in March. House Democrats have swatted away questions about whether they will move to subpoena Bolton. As long as it was still possible that the Senate could subpoena him as part of the trial, the House was staying out of it.
But the evidentiary record for the trial is closed, and there are no more opportunities for Democrats to force votes on witnesses for the remainder of the trial. It’s not a matter of if we hear from Bolton; it’s just a matter of when. Read today’s Huddle newsletter. — Andrew Desiderio
Source: politico.com
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