Trump impeachment trial near a no-witness acquittal

Not guilty enough

Did President Donald Trump's lawyers witness-proof his Senate trial with their multiple-choice arguments, including that even if he was pursuing his personal political interests with Ukraine, it's no impeachable offense? That's how it looked late Thursday night.

Tennessee's Sen. Lamar Alexander, critical to the Democrats' hopes of finding four Republicans to vote in favor of hearing from witnesses, announced he won't. The facts that a John Bolton could offer to the Senate as an eyewitness to Trump's scheme don't matter, he said.

"It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation," Alexander's statement said. "But there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the U.S. Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense."

Polls showed more than 70% of Americans wanted witnesses. Two Republicans came out in favor of witnesses Thursday: Utah's Mitt Romney and Maine's Susan Collins. Alaska's Lisa Murkowski was still thinking about it. But without Alexander, or a shock defection by another Republican against Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the best the Democrats can hope for is a 50-50 tie.

Ties lose, unless the trial's presiding officer, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, decides to step in. There's precedent for that, from President Andrew Johnson's 1868 impeachment trial, but it appears to be a long shot.

It all could be over by Friday night or Saturday. Newsday's Tom Brune reported that when the Senate convenes at 1 p.m., there will be a four-hour debate on whether to even consider a motion to subpoena witnesses or documents. If defeated, the senators then will deliberate and vote on the articles of impeachment.

Earlier, before Alexander's announcement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he had a plan of procedural maneuvers to frustrate McConnell's wind-it-up timetable and make a last-ditch try to get Republicans to relent. “The minority has rights. We will exercise those rights,” Schumer said. But a minority they remain.

Schiff's sorrow

As a second day of questions from senators to each side came to a close, lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff tweeted from the agony of impending defeat:

"After two and half centuries of our nation's history, it's come to this:

"The President's lawyers argue on the Senate floor that he can withhold aid, coerce an ally, and try to cheat in an election,

"And there's nothing we can do about it.

"Our Founders would be aghast."

Dershowitz on defense

A sideshow raged Thursday over Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz's assertion Wednesday that if a president "does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest," it's not an impeachable quid pro quo.

Schiff called that argument a “descent into constitutional madness.” Dershowitz insisted he didn't mean a president "can do anything."

Money behind Rudy remains mystery

Rudy Giuliani says he has represented Trump for free, but he's never been clear on who has been paying the travel and other expenses for his Ukraine sleuthing. Three Democratic senators posed the question on Thursday.

Schiff said he didn't know. “I don’t know who’s directly paying the freight for it, but I can tell you the whole country is paying the freight for it,” he said.

Trump attorney Jay Sekulow refused to answer, turning instead to an attack on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Janison: Fallible wall

Many people are laughing at Trump's border wall again.

High winds blew down several sections of new barrier fence this week in Calexico, California, writes Newsday's Dan Janison. Panels of steel bollards, 30 feet high, were sunk into concrete that had not yet hardened, according to news accounts. The toppled barrier parts landed in Mexican territory, but no one paid for it in the form of injuries. 

Two hours to the west, officials this week revealed the discovery last year of a 4,309-foot smuggling tunnel from an industrial site in Tijuana, Mexico, to the San Diego area. It had rail carts, a ventilation system, electric fixtures, an elevator at the entrance and drains.

"This one blows past [the second-longest, which was 2,966 feet long, on the Southwest border]," Lance LeNoir, a Border Patrol operations supervisor, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "We never really thought they had the moxie to go that far. They continue to surprise me."

Rape accuser wants DNA from DJT

The woman who sued Trump for defamation — he denied raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s — is asking him for a DNA sample to compare to male genetic material found on the dress she says she wore during the alleged assault.

Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers served notice to a Trump attorney Thursday for the president to submit a sample on March 2 in Washington for “analysis and comparison," The Associated Press reported.

“Unidentified male DNA on the dress could prove that Donald Trump not only knows who I am, but also that he violently assaulted me in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman and then defamed me by lying about it and impugning my character,” Carroll said in a statement.

Trump’s lawyer has tried to get the case thrown out. A Manhattan judge declined to do so earlier this month.

Beggars Banquet

Dumping on Bolton for contradicting his Ukraine story, Trump tweeted that his former national security adviser had "begged" him for a job. That adds Bolton to a long list of people who, after they turned on him, Trump belittled as having "begged" him for things. Check out a compilation by CNN.

There are Romney (for a Senate race endorsement and nomination to be secretary of state), Anthony Scaramucci ("wanted to come back"), Omarosa Manigault Newman ("begged me for a job"), Steve Bannon ("cried when he got fired and begged for his job") and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (begged for campaign donations).

Also, former Sen. Bob Corker and the late Sen. John McCain (begged for endorsement in primary), the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper ("begged me for ads"), 2016 primary rival Rick Perry (when the Texas governor begged "for my support and money"), Fox News commentator Dana Perino (begged for a tweet plugging her book), magician Penn Jillette ("begged to be on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ ”) and David Letterman (begged Trump to go on his show after calling him a racist).

Zeldin: No worries on homefront

Rep. Lee Zeldin’s role on Trump's impeachment defense team, championing the president and eviscerating his accusers on national TV and Twitter, has opened him up to attacks from Democrats back home as "Absentee Lee."

They contend that the time he has devoted to Trump’s defense should have been spent working on district issues. But Zeldin tells Newsday's Laura Figueroa Hernandez that he's doing it for his constituents, too. The district, covering Suffolk County’s East End, voted for Trump in 2016 by a 12-point margin.

“It’s a very slippery slope that we're going down right now,” Zeldin said. At a White House Hanukkah event, Trump described him as a warrior, and the president frequently retweets Zeldin’s missives to his own 71 million followers.

As an example of keeping attention on local concerns, Zeldin said he has been advocating with the Department of Energy for Brookhaven National Laboratory to be selected for a 10-year, $2 billion project to build an electron-ion collider.

What else is happening:

• Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross sees a silver lining in the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China: more U.S. jobs. "Every American’s heart has to go out to the victims of the coronavirus, so I don’t want to talk about a victory lap," he said on Fox Business News. He added that the risk factor “will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America — some to the U.S., probably some to Mexico as well."
• The Michael Bloomberg and Trump campaigns have unveiled their $10 million Super Bowl ads. Bloomberg's spot focuses on his advocacy for tougher gun laws and features a mother grieving the loss of her son, a school football player. Trump's features general themes and rally footage and boasts about low unemployment and building military prowess.
• Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has arrived in Ukraine and will meet Friday with President Volodymyr Zelensky. On Wednesday, Pompeo sidestepped questions about whether he will ask Zelensky about the Bidens and Burisma. He said he would focus on helping Ukraine root out "corruption" and repel Russian attacks.
• There's another video of Trump, who claims he doesn't know Lev Parnas, meeting with him in 2018 as part of a small group of donors. This time, it's at Mar-a-Lago, 10 days before their dinner at Trump's Washington hotel and before Parnas joined forces with Giuliani to press their Ukraine agendas.
• Bernie Sanders is considering dozens of executive orders, if elected, to fulfill his agenda, The Washington Post reported, citing an internal campaign document. Among them: rescinding Trump's hard-line immigration moves, banning private prisons, allowing prescription drug imports from Canada, directing the Justice Department to legalize marijuana, declaring climate change a national emergency and banning the exportation of crude oil.
• Trump supporters in Iowa started lining up Wednesday to get into Thursday night's rally in Des Moines. An AP-NORC poll finds Republicans growing more excited and Democrats more anxious about the election.