Republicans face reckoning on impeachment witnesses

Republican Sen. Rand Paul offered a warning to his colleagues as they began debating whether to hear from witnesses like John Bolton in President Donald Trump’s imminent impeachment trial.

“Don’t think you can just vote for Bolton and not the witnesses Trump wants,” Paul told senators at a party lunch last week, according to two attendees and two people briefed on the meeting. He advised that incumbent senators’ conservative base would be enraged if vulnerable lawmakers were seen as undercutting Trump.

The blunt advice from Paul laid bare the GOP’s perilous task in handling Trump’s impeachment trial in an election year, all while the president delivers stage directions on his Twitter account. Trump over the weekend first requested that House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and even Speaker Nancy Pelosi appear as witnesses, then argued a few hours later that the trial should be dismissed summarily before it begins.

“At different times the president has expressed different views. But I wouldn’t get too distracted by an intervening tweet,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“This is about Chuck Schumer getting 2020 Republican incumbents into tough voting situations,” Cornyn added in reference to Schumer’s vow to force motions to subpoena witnesses. “It won’t surprise you that we’re thinking about that too and how to avoid that as much as possible.”

The GOP has tried to stay focused on its game plan to shut down Democratic hopes of locking in witnesses at the outset of the trial, but it’s become increasingly clear the party will face an internal reckoning during the trial as it defends its Senate majority and faces a president who demands complete loyalty.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has sent GOP leaders a message that they can’t assume she will try to move through the trial as quickly as possible and ignore the possibility of hearing new evidence. And she’s not alone.

Take Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who is retiring at the end of the year. He says he might vote to hear witnesses “if I needed to. Or I might not. Or I might.”

“My view is we should hear the case, ask our questions and then have a vote on whether we need to hear additional witnesses or call for additional documents,” said Alexander. “It’s important to have a vote on whether we have witnesses or not.”

Republicans are preparing a resolution establishing trial rules that would punt those decisions until after hearing the opening arguments from House impeachment managers and Trump’s attorneys. McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to finalize that language on Tuesday with his conference, and it will be “substantially similar” to the language governing former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, according to a person familiar with discussion. Ultimately in that trial, the Senate subpoenaed three witnesses for depositions after opening arguments.

McConnell has to balance his approach to the Trump trial between GOP hard-liners who want an immediate vote to dismiss the case and his more moderate members, such as Collins, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah, who want to retain the ability to call witnesses for additional evidence.

“I have been working for and advocating that we follow that model. And that we have language in the governing [rules] setting up the parameters of the trial that would allow for a vote on whether or not we should have witnesses subpoenaed and documented provided,” Collins told reporters on Monday evening.

She’s been speaking with GOP colleagues about the matter and said the “discussions have been going well,” though it’s a group that might be able to fit into a couple of phone booths.

Still, even just three GOP senators could keep the trial from moving forward under McConnell’s preferred path. And both Collins and Romney said they will not move to immediately dismiss the trial, essentially blowing up Trump’s Twitter trial balloon. Republicans control 53 seats and 51 votes are required to approve motions.

Trump “indicated consistently for the previous weeks that ... he deserves an opportunity to get a fair hearing, make his case and I think that’s ultimately what will happen,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of GOP leadership.

The ensuing votes could get even more interesting.

“I’m not going to be voting for witnesses prior to the opening arguments. But I presume I’ll be voting for that after,” Romney told reporters.

McConnell privately notes to other senators that his approach doesn’t foreclose the possibility of calling witnesses. But it does allow the Senate to begin the trial and move toward a resolution of the political crisis that has consumed Trump and Capitol Hill for months.

So while McConnell and his deputies appeared to deploy a hard-line whipping strategy last week to lock up the votes to ignore Schumer’s initial demands, GOP leaders have turned to a far softer approach as the impeachment trial prepares to open in the coming days.

“We want to have the Clinton rule applied to the beginning of the process and then deal with issue of witnesses at a later stage,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “I don’t think there’s any questions that there will probably be that vote at some point.”

But while Romney might like to hear from Bolton, there’s also a wing of Trump loyalists like Paul (R-Ky.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who argue that, if witnesses are going to be considered, Joe and Hunter Biden need to be included. And much of the GOP is caught in the middle, a function of the party’s narrow majority and the desire of Senate GOP leaders to sideline Democrats as much as possible and exercise control of the trial with only Republican votes.

It’s easy to see the witness debate spiraling out of control with senators seeking controversial witnesses that neither party wants to consider, absent some sort of broader agreement on the second phase of the trial.

“We need to start working together on procedures,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), another lawmaker facing reelection.

Marianne LeVine and Marc Caputo contributed to this report.