McConnell: GOP will start impeachment trial, delay witnesses

To call this a trial, the Senate must call witnesses, and comprehensively investigate what occurred. Folks who must testify include Bolton, Pompeo, Mulvaney, Duffey from OMB, and McCusker from DOD. This testimony is required to figure out why the aid was withheld.

Anything less is a coverup. Plain and simple.

McConnell will do anything to cover for Trump. He knows the truth would be too harmful to his party.

Pelosi would be stupid to send on the papers for a coverup framed as a trial. Better to just move on to campaigning.

 former national security adviser John Bolton 

I despise Bolton and everything he's stood for. He's another warmonger. I want him to testify, but given he's lied so many times doubt whether what he says would be much more than distortions and alt facts.

To me the best thing about the reported Pompeo(Trump) v. Bolton riff is seeing the neocons factionalized.

But when big money's at stake, and there's not much bigger money than big war, it can be expected that the snakes in the bucket will turn on each other.

Given the hyper partisan nature of this impeachment against Trump, McConnell's offer for the Clinton rules should have been greeted by Democrats with open arms. But instead they have demanded to treat a Republican president different from the way a Democratic president was treated not so long ago under the guise of producing a fair trial. The Democratic Party has failed, they do not represent anyone, they represent the party and the elites who fund it.

Keep it up Trumpeteer's. You're doing the fascists (and current) of old quite proud.

Supporting dictatorship, authoritarianism, and tyranny oh my! Mao, Mussolini, Stalin, the Kims, etc couldn't have asked for a better crowd. Next up dissolution of Congress by a corrupt Senate majority political party who support a corrupt POTUS... you know, what Venezuela's Maduro has been doing. HYPOCRITES.

What kind of America do you guys believe in? It sure isn't what our founders were aiming for.

No matter what former National Security Adviser John Bolton says about being willing to testify under subpoena from the Senate, it is likely the White House would invoke executive privilege to try to prevent his testimony.

What's more, if he's so interested in telling his story now, why does he need to wait for a subpoena? Bolton could simply write down everything he knows and send it to Congress right now if he wanted. But he hasn't done that, I suspect because he wants the appearance of looking like he wants to talk without the actual responsibility of doing it.

HonestDictator - Keep it up Trumpeteer's.

OK.

The House Democrats have failed to even make a case for an impeachment, let alone a strong case. You don't normally start with a finding of guilty, and then spend three years looking for something/anything to accuse a POTUS of committing. Well, honest/normal people do not. 

If House Democrats had actually wanted to hear from more witnesses, they could have called those witnesses when House Democrats were in charge of their inquisition. Use the power of subpoena when necessary, and then defend those subpoenas in federal court. Unless, of course, House Democrats were afraid that any defense of their subpoenas would undermine their three year hunt for something to hang their predetermined guilty verdict on.

JustMyThoughts - No matter what former National Security Adviser John Bolton says about being willing to testify under subpoena from the Senate, it is likely the White House would invoke executive privilege to try to prevent his testimony.

What's more, if he's so interested in telling his story now, why does he need to wait for a subpoena?

Bolton's position has always been that he is willing to testify IF he is issued a subpoena AND a federal court rules that the subpoena is lawful.

What I find interesting is that Democrats, and Hillary-worshippers, believe (hope?) that Bolton's testimony will help them win their current public relations campaign to change the minds of the voters in favor of impeachment. The best efforts (if you can call it that) over the last three years by elected Democrats still hasn't convinced half of the country that Trump should be impeached.

Awesome let’s do it! Nothing to cover up, simply vote on what they were given by the House and Nancy. If they weren’t done “investigating” and getting testimony, shouldn't have voted.

Pelosi would be stupid to send on the papers for a coverup framed as a trial. Better to just move on to campaigning.

Better for the President as well, then it makes it a lot easier for McConnell to wrap this farce up.

Isn’t the House tasked with investigation and the Senate with the trial?

how math witnesses testified in the Clinton impeachment and did Chuck Schumer support witnesses then? Nope.

To call this a trial, the Senate must call witnesses, and comprehensively investigate what occurred.

Absurd and No, they don’t. The House had their chance to make a case. They absolutely have zero power or control over the Republican controlled Senate. McConnell should tell Nancy to pound sand. Either submit the documents or dismiss the entire farce. Now if Schumer and McConnell can work out something, that’s up to them, but Nancy needs to bite her tongue enough already.

Folks who must testify include Bolton, Pompeo, Mulvaney, Duffey from OMB, and McCusker from DOD. This testimony is required to figure out why the aid was withheld.

Not withheld, they got the aid, now if they didn’t as in Obama’s administration you might have something, but the Dems don’t.

Anything less is a coverup. Plain and simple.

Liberals talking about a coverup? Hilarious! ROFL!

House Democrats had arrived at their extremely biased guilty verdict three years ago. After all of their dirty work, the only charges they could come up with was based on what the meaning of the word "us" is, and demanding that anyone who expects a judicial review of a subpoena must be guilty by default. Those are the charges which will be examined by the U.S. Senate.

It's obvious, even to Democrats, that their latest efforts haven't generating the public support they had hoped for. No minds were changed. Maybe if Schiff, and Nadler, had followed thru on their subpoena efforts, or had allowed Republicans to select witnesses of the Republicans own choosing, they might have made a better showing.

Now Pelosi is desperately trying to influence how the U.S. Senate will hold its trial. But as Pelosi repeatedly made clear, each house is responsible for it's own rules. Pelosi has no say in how the Senate runs it's own show. McConnell, and the rest of the majority party, can hold a trial with, or without, the House's biased charges. Or delay the trial until the end of the 116th Congress when the Senate's biased efforts will be null, and void.

If elected Democrats truly believed that these witnesses were soooooo important to their impeachment case, they should have called them when they had the chance.