BREAKING: Senate Votes To Hear Witnesses In Trump Trial

Just as lawyers for former President Donald Trump were moving to rest their case, the Senate on Saturday voted to allow calling witnesses, a move that could delay the proceeding for days, even weeks.

While House Democrats acting as impeachment managers of the case plan to call a single witness to testify — Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) — their move reportedly opens the floodgates, allowing Trump’s lawyers to call witnesses, too.

Beutler, one of 10 Republicans who voted last month to impeach Trump, claims she was briefed about a phone call between Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). “When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol,” Beutler said in a statement.

“McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,’” the statement added.

The lead House manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said, “Needless to say, this is an additional critical piece of evidence.”

Raskin said a deposition over Zoom could be conducted in an hour, but one of Trump’s defense lawyers, Michael van der Veen, said if managers call witnesses, he will seek to call numerous witnesses with in-person depositions.

“I’m gonna’ slap subpoenas on a good number of people,” van der Veen said. Before the vote, van der Veen said if Democrats were going to ask for witnesses, “I’m gonna’ need at least over 100 depositions, not just one.”

“If you vote for witnesses, do not handcuff me by limiting the number of witnesses I can have,” van der Veen said, later adding, “We should close this case out today.”

Raskin responded: “There’s only one person the president’s counsel needs to interview and that’s their own client. Bring him forward.”

On Saturday morning, the Senate voted 55-45 to begin the process of calling witnesses. Initially, four Republicans joined all Democrats: Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska. Before the vote was finalized, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina changed his vote to yes — “presumably to support Trump’s lawyers also calling witnesses in addition to the House impeachment managers’ request,” CNN reported.

“Democrats have been debating whether to call witnesses in light of new details that have emerged with the trial underway this week, according to multiple sources, including new descriptions about Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s call with Trump as the riot unfolded and new details about House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s call with the former President,” CNN reported. “Multiple aides said the debate is that witnesses could clarify the timeline of what Trump knew and when in a compelling way, but it’s not clear that the witnesses would change minds of senators already dug in about the verdict. Witnesses would also extend the trial considerably with Senate Democrats eager to move on to President Joe Biden’s agenda.”

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