House managers at the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump in the Senate defended his failed decision not to call witnesses to testify – with one insisting that they were not needed because members of the chamber experienced the Capitol riots last month.
Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) Was questioned on ABC News “This Week” if she and other Democrats suing the Trump case “yielded” to seeking testimony on Saturday, right after a vote that allowed them to do just that.
“Not at all,” she said. “We don’t need any more witnesses. America witnessed this. We were in a room full of witnesses and victims, we didn’t need any more witnesses.”
She noted that Democrats were able to have a statement by Republican Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler about the connection of minority leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, with Trump on January 6, admitted to the evidence record.
Another businessman, Del. Stacey Plaskett, of the Virgin Islands, said the result was to record Herrera Beutler’s recollection of his conversation with McCarthy, and added that Republican senators were unlikely to vote to condemn Trump anyway.
“I know people are in a lot of anguish and believe that maybe if we had (a witness) the senators would have done what we wanted, but, listen, we didn’t need any more witnesses, we needed more senators with thorns,” he said in “State of CNN.
Herrera Beutler said McCarthy told her that she begged the ex-president to cancel his supporters after they broke into the Capitol on January 6, causing lawmakers to run for safety.
She said Trump said to the Republican leader, “Well, Kevin, I think these people are more upset about the election than you are.”
The Senate voted 55-45 to call witnesses after Deputy Jamie Raskin, the House’s top manager, tried to summon Herrea Beutler to testify – a process that could have delayed the Senate trial for weeks.
But then House managers and Trump’s legal team made a deal to just admit his statement as evidence.
Herrera Beutler was one of 10 House Republicans who voted with Democrats for Trump’s impeachment on January 13.
Dean said the ex-president’s lawyers’ “stipulation” provided the truth of Herrera Beuter’s statement.
“He was registered as yet another witness to the high crime rate and the insurrection incited by a president,” said Dean.
The Senate acquitted Trump in a House 57-43 vote on the charge of “inciting insurrection. Seven Republicans voted with Democrats to condemn, but the margin fell short of the 67 needed to condemn.