But that quick resolution came after several hours of absolute uncertainty.
Although Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) and his members prepared for the possibility to vote for witnesses, they received no notice that the House’s chief prosecutor was about to force a vote that could have trial extended for days or weeks. Impeachment managers spent Friday night and Saturday morning fighting on their own and made the final decision at the last minute, according to Democratic sources.
The leaders debated until 3 am on Saturday on how to proceed, according to two Democrats familiar with the negotiations. Schumer communicated to them that his 50-member caucus would support any decision they made.
Then, Senate Democrats held a conference call at 9 am on Saturday, in which members still indicated that they were unaware of the plans of Democratic House administrators. The managers did not make the final call to force a Senate vote until minutes before the Senate hammered out at 10 am, the Democrats said. Managers began to inform senators who wanted witnesses at 9:55 am
“We don’t coordinate with managers,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Adding that Democratic senators “have social conversations” with their colleagues in the House, but “don’t talk about strategy. So we didn’t know that they would ask witnesses or not. And that’s how it should be. ”
Summing up the position that Democratic senators took, Cardin said: “If managers believe it would help in their presentation, we should let them have witnesses.”
As Senate Democrats crowded into his call, his party’s impeachment managers initiated contact with at least some of the ten House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment, according to several sources. The exact nature of these conversations remains unclear – but what happened next shocked everyone.
The Senate quickly switched to a 55-45 bipartisan vote to consider possible witnesses. Schumer had long postponed managers: if they wanted to call witnesses, he said Democrats would support it. Still, the witnesses’ vote personally surprised the Senate majority leader, Democrats said.
But after they voted to move on, House administrators had no real plan of what to do next, according to a Democrat familiar with the talks: “Senate Democrats gave them the votes, but the administrators didn’t they knew what the next step would be. “
Several sources close to the impeachment administrators contested this claim, saying that, instead, it was significant pressure from Senate Democrats that resulted in their decision to change course. House administrators wanted to bring deputy Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) To testify, only giving in after receiving resistance from several Senate Democrats, they said.
The night before, Herrera Beutler issued a statement telling a story she told last month, detailing a heated link between House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Trump during the violent uprising.
During the Senate break after the witnesses ‘vote on Saturday, Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) Twice entered the managers’ office outside the Senate floor, according to several Democratic sources. Coons pressured House Democrats to give in, saying his search for witnesses would cost Republican votes to condemn and perhaps even some Democrats.
“The jury is ready to vote,” Coons told managers, according to a Democratic aide to the House. “People want to get home on Valentine’s Day.”
Coons later returned a second time to ask managers to make a deal with Trump’s lawyers to record what House Democrats viewed as overwhelming evidence of Herrera Beutler. Senator Joe Manchin (DW.Va.) also approached a Chamber manager in the corridor to urge him not to call witnesses, according to sources close to the managers.
A person close to Coons said he spoke to Republican party MPs and senators and told managers that he would consider it to be days, if not weeks of debate and that Republicans were ready to vote. Coons said Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s plans to absolve him demonstrated that there was a ceiling on the number of Republicans.
A Coons spokesman said the senator “was simply conveying to House managers that several of his Republican colleagues told him that there were no more votes on their side and that their members were ready to fly home. It is unfortunate that, apparently , no amount of additional evidence was going to convince another 10 of his Republican colleagues of Donald Trump’s guilt. “
Managers tried to contact Herrera Beutler on Friday night and Saturday morning to assess his interest in testifying, said a person familiar with the talks. But even before there was a chance to respond, impeachment managers had already backed down, accepting the deal with Trump’s lawyers to file his statement and move on.
The Senate has finally devised a quick solution to help the House avoid a long trail of depositions that could drag the trial through March. Instead of calling witnesses, Herrera Beutler’s testimony was recorded. And the trial was coming to an end.
“Now that the Trump team has agreed to bring this unchallenged statement to the record of the trial, it can be considered by the senators along with the already overwhelming evidence on President Trump’s conduct on January 6, without the need for subpoena, testimony and other statements, ”said an adviser to the Chamber’s impeachment managers.
For a week or more, the majority in the party suggested that the senators’ experience as witnesses to the January 6 uprising could be enough to condemn Trump for inciting her. And Democrats have warned that a disorderly incursion into unfamiliar territory can be a much greater risk than not hearing witnesses.
“In my mind, we have two goals: to maximize the number of Republican votes and to maximize the understanding of the American public” about Trump’s role in the mutiny, said a Democratic senator who was divided on the move. “That will not change the Republican votes and only make everything more confusing. “
The organizing resolution that set parameters for the trial did not exclude witnesses, because Schumer and other Democrats did not want to prevent House administrators from making their own strategic decisions during the trial.