I wonder why Graham changed his vote to call witnesses…
Rand and Cruz are with the defence already.
There was a senator wondering what the vote was on which he just voted.
Quorum call gives them a bit of time to get themselves together. Now the trial will suspend to figure out what to do.
Can they force Trump to testify? I’d love to see it but don’t believe it will happen.
I think because earlier he threatened something like “if you call witnesses, we’re gonna call Pelosi and VP Harris and Mayor Bowser and whoever we want”. Just dumb posturing, IMO.
So does the trial get put on hold while the witnesses are deposed?
They can subpoena him. He can take the 5th amendment, if he wants, but that will be a pretty strong indication he’s guilty.
This is a vote whether to have witnesses.
Each witness will require their own vote, majority rules.
Graham can posture all he wants, but if he wants to call Pelosi, etc, he’s going to have to get the Dems to agree so he can exceed 50 votes… and they won’t.
I was about to ask here, why don’t they subpoena McCarthy instead of Herrera? And Nina Totenberg (NPR) just answered it: because McCarthy keeps changing his attitude on the events and isn’t particularly reliable.
Yes, now that they voted for witnesses the trial will hold until the witness are called and disposed.
They will not be called to phillydelphia to be disposed, this is a senate trial, everything is centered here.
I’d say first call Herrera, and if her testimony is compelling and strong (i.e. she leaves no room for McCarthy to do anything aside from say she’s telling the truth or she’s lying), then maybe call McCarthy and dare him to lie on the stand.
That’s a bit harsh.
Maybe you’re just predisposed to think so.
They should put Tuberville up there too - to A) get the truth out of him (or throw him jail for perjury) and 2) watch him squirm as he most certainly doesn’t even know whats going on around him. I mean, like, in general. He’s a friggin’ dope.
The Senate just voted to allow witnesses, it seems.
What are the possible outcomes if they subpoena Trump himself as a witness? AFACT there’s really nothing stopping them.
- Trump appears in response to the subpoena (unlikely, but perhaps they’ll goad him into it)
- Trump defies the subpoena (what prevents him from being arrested in contempt?)
- Trump contests the subpoena… does this bog down the trial while it escalates to SCOTUS? Are we in a staring contest to see who wants the trial wrapped the most?
- Trump ignores the subpoena and the Democrats ignore it
I’m baffled by Graham’s threat to call Pelosi. It’s like these guys are so greasy that they’re threatened by the faint possibility of testifying, and they just assume that everybody else in the world is likewise dirty.
Trump can take the 5th and not testify, I believe (but IANAL).
Mitch already leaked this morning that he’s voting to acquit, so witnesses are meaningless to the final outcome, sadly.
Bad things happen in Philadelphia…
This is basically tossing a huge stink bomb on the senate floor.
I believe that they have to vote on who and how many, each vote would have to have a majority vote for each.
A very scary possibility: what if Trump doesn’t take the 5th, but doesn’t respond? Then, presumably, the DOJ sends US Marshalls to take him into custody. But what if Trump asks the Governor of Florida to order FL state police to protect him? What happens if the idiot FL Governor agrees and we get a standoff between US Marshalls and FL police outside of Mar-a-Lago?
He will still have to sit in that chair to plead it…a chair with a microphone in front of it.
He might be able to do it via Zoom.