Last night the news broke that McConnell doesn’t have the votes to block a vote on having witnesses. What this means isn’t clear, but if there’s anything clear about this whole ordeal, it’s that Comrade McConnell is going to engage in the maximum fuckery possible. In last night’s comments on a post with a different topic, Martin made this point:
As part of the process, they have a vote of whether to consider witness. That’s the vote in question here. Then there’s a process of submitting witness requests to leadership, I think it is, and they introduce individual motions for votes. They don’t need to introduce every rando request, but things they think are relevant. It could be none will pass. There will probably be some negotiating in how the motions are structured, whether individual witnesses, open or closed session, all that garbage.
That sounds possible to me, but as the ever-shifting needs of the weaker links in his caucus to have fig leafs of “I did too vote for witnesses” bump up against the desires of safe seat Senators to just get it over with, how this thing ends up will probably be at least a little unpredictable.
That first story linked brings up a Republican talking point that witnesses will cause the impeachment to be delayed by a side trip into the courts as witnesses resist their subpoenas. My understanding is that this is bullshit: Roberts will rule from the bench and his ruling is final. Congress has the sole power to impeach and remove, and there is no appeal for a ruling from the presiding officer, the Chief Justice.
I’m sure Trump, who has skirted the law by dilatory legal actions for his whole life, disagrees, but unless anyone can cite a non-wingnut legal authority, I’m thinking that any witnesses called will show up.