Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) indicated on Monday the GOP-led Senate remains open to the call for witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial — an issue that has remained a sticking point for Democrats.
“We haven’t ruled out witnesses,” McConnell told Fox & Friends. “We’ve said, ‘Let’s handle this case just like we did with President Clinton.’”
“Fair is fair,” McConnell added.
His remark follow last week’s “cordial” conversation with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who indicated calling witnesses, including former national security adviser John Bolton, is necessary to “ensure a fair trial.”
“Senator Schumer made clear to Sen. McConnell that the witnesses and documents are necessary to ensure a fair trial in the Senate,” Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman said in a statement, according to the Hill.
“Sen. Schumer asked Sen. McConnell to consider Sen. Schumer’s proposal over the holidays because Sen. Schumer and his caucus believe the witnesses and documents are essential to a fair Senate trial,” he added.
While McConnell is signaling that Senate Republicans are not closing the door on witnesses, he warned last week against a rehash of the House proceedings or a “fishing expedition to see whether his [Schumer’s] own ideas could make Chairman Schiff’s sloppy work more persuasive than Chairman Schiff himself bothered to make it.”
“The Senate is meant to act as judge and jury to hear a trial, not to rerun the entire fact-finding investigation because angry partisans rushed sloppily through it,” McConnell stated.
McConnell said he and Schumer remain at an “impasse,” because the minority leader “continues to demand a new and different set of rules for President Trump.”