Meanwhile behind closed-doors, few Republicans have advocated for witnesses.
“It’s not like there are many people going into conference making a hard pitch for it. And nobody’s tried to convince anybody that we should vote for it,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) on Thursday evening. Romney, however, did say he’d made his case behind closed doors.
Democrats are beginning to discuss a backup plan: forcing more tough votes before acquittal.
Those options could range from proposals for a closed-door session to having more time to deliberate before delivering a verdict. No final decisions have been made by the party on how to handle the possibility that 51 GOP senators try to move the trial to a quick end. There’s also the matter of whether it’s worth keeping the four Democratic senators running for president in town through the weekend.
“Certainly we’re going to call attention to this rushed cover-up. And anything we can do to put our Republican colleagues on record points responsibility where it belongs. They’re the ones who are opposing witnesses and documents,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
Privately, several Democrats say they do not know how Friday will proceed or what tactics Schumer will employ.
“The plan is to finish this up tomorrow or in the wee hours of the morning Saturday. It’s a matter of what delaying tactics the Democrats could use,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the No. 3 GOP leader. He said the Republicans will move to end the trial “once we have the votes to show we’re not going to have the witnesses.”
The witness vote will occur as late as 5 p.m. Friday if the White House defense team and the House impeachment managers use all their debate time, though Hawley said he didn’t expect the defense to use all of its time. Then, if Democrats can force more votes on motions, more debate would be warranted.
That sort of procedural battle could make for an ugly Friday session that bleeds into the weekend, and the precise next steps are unclear. Senators could vote to adjourn and regroup on Saturday. The Senate could go into closed-door deliberations. Or McConnell could power through and end Trump’s trial in far speedier fashion than Clinton’s trial.
“Anything could happen timing-wise,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a top McConnell deputy. “But things here almost always take longer than you think they’re going to take, so we’ll see.”
Sarah Ferris and Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this report.
Source: politico.com
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