Connolly: ‘I Don’t Think You Need Witnesses’ in Senate Impeachment Trial

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) argued that the House’s impeachment case is “ironclad” and while witnesses in the Senate’s impeachment trial would help the case for impeachment and not allowing them would make Republicans look like they’re engaged in a whitewash, witnesses aren’t needed.

Connolly began by saying that if Republicans don’t allow witnesses in the Senate trial, they will “look like they are whitewashing this whole affair and just going through the motions of a trial. And that opens them up to the criticism that it was a sham trial and they were a rigged jury. I think it’s in their own interest to have witnesses, witnesses that were not available to the House when we were doing depositions.”

He added, “I personally believe that the case given to the Senate by the House is ironclad. I think it provides prima facie evidence of abuse of office, obstruction of Congress, as charged, and he ought to be found guilty. I don’t think you need witnesses, but I do think witnesses would be helpful in augmenting the testimony and the documents provided to the Senate by the House.”

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