One of Josh Marshall’s readers who’s also a federal prosecutor sent in an email setting up a possible showdown where John Roberts would be making rulings on whether players like Bolton and Mulvaney could be forced to testify. His theory is that, with everyone watching, Roberts will be a pretty straight referee who will allow subpoenas for those who haven’t testified yet, and force the Senate to vote to overrule him. Read it all here.
This made me wonder about witnesses in general. Let’s look at what happened at Clinton’s impeachment:
A resolution on rules and procedure for the trial was adopted unanimously on the following day; however, senators tabled the question of whether to call witnesses in the trial. The trial remained in recess while briefs were filed by the House (January 11) and Clinton (January 13). […]
Over three days, February 1–3, House managers took videotaped closed-door depositions from Monica Lewinsky, Clinton’s friend Vernon Jordan, and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal. On February 4, however, the Senate voted 70–30 that excerpting these videotapes would suffice as testimony, rather than calling live witnesses to appear at trial. The videos were played in the Senate on February 6, featuring 30 excerpts of Lewinsky discussing her affidavit in the Paula Jones case, the hiding of small gifts Clinton had given her, and his involvement in procurement of a job for Lewinsky.
In other words, the Senate adopts its own rules for impeachment, and given the makeup of the Senate, it’s unlikely that they will call witnesses if they think it will damage Trump.
If someone knows more about this, please sound off in the comments, but from what I see, there ain’t no savior rising from these streets.