Senate Begins Closing Arguments in Impeachment Trial With Trump Acquittal Likely

A momentous, if anticlimactic, few days lie ahead in Washington as the Senate hears closing arguments Monday in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, then holds two days of debate before voting for an all-but-guaranteed acquittal.

In between, Democrats in Iowa’s caucuses will take the first step Monday night toward choosing the candidate who’ll run against Trump in November. And on Tuesday night, the president will deliver the annual State of the Union address to Congress.

Trump’s path to a speedy acquittal was sealed when Republican senators voted Friday to rebuff Democrats’ efforts to call new witnesses.

A vote to acquit Trump on the two articles of impeachment approved by the Democratic-led House -- alleging abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- is set for Wednesday afternoon.

With 67 votes needed to convict, Trump is expected to be easily acquitted, even after some Republican senators allowed that he erred in his dealings with Ukraine.

Senator Lamar Alexander said Trump crossed a line by withholding U.S. aid to the nation as a way to “encourage” an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival. But Alexander said voters, not senators, should decide what to do about it.

“I’m going to vote to acquit. I’m very concerned about any action that we could take that would establish a perpetual impeachment,” the Tennessee Republican who’s retiring this year said Sunday on NBC. Speaking on CNN, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa said Trump’s interactions with Ukraine were done “maybe in the wrong manner.” She’ll also vote to acquit.

Representative Adam Schiff, the Democratic impeachment manager, promised a spirited closing argument in Monday’s session, which starts at 11 a.m. Washington time.

It was “remarkable” that “you now have Republican senators coming out and saying, ‘Yes, the House proved its case -- the House proved the corrupt scheme that they charged in the articles of impeachment,”’ Schiff said Sunday on CBS.

But many Republicans bemoaned what they called a flawed process driven by the Democrats’ partisan fervor, echoing Trump.

“They don’t care about fairness, they don’t care about lying,” the president said Sunday in a Fox News interview aired during the Super Bowl pregame show. “They just want to win, and it doesn’t matter how they win.”

Senate Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a moderate Republican viewed as one of four in her party who was viewed as someone who might support the Democratic call for witnesses, said on Friday that the Senate started with a “flawed product” delivered by the Democratic-led House, and that she became “frustrated and disappointed and angry at all sides.”

Reports emerged a week ago that John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, had written a draft manuscript alleging the president told him directly that he wanted military aid to Ukraine withheld unless its leaders publicly announced an investigation into Biden -- a revelation that undermined Trump’s defense.

That bombshell briefly raised expectations that enough Republicans would vote to call for witnesses, including Bolton and others. In the end, the vote fell short on Friday, 49 to 51, with only two GOP senators supporting witnesses.

Whether in testimony before the House, in Bolton’s book, or in another form, “the truth will come out,” Schiff said.

“For those who would say ‘well, let’s let the voters decide’ when the president is trying to cheat in that very election, and they don’t want the voters to have the full information, they want the president to continue to be able to cover it up -- that’s just completely unsatisfactory,” Schiff said.

Trump said Sunday that he planned to focus in the State of the Union speech on his administration’s efforts on the economy, military and taxes, which he said amounted to “a positive revolution.”

“We’re gonna talk about the achievements that we’ve made,” he said on Fox News. “Nobody has made achievements like we’ve made.”

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