GOP crossing party lines needed for fair trial, Schumer says

WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Sunday said he is “hopeful” that Democrats can secure support from at least four Republicans to force a vote on calling witnesses for President Donald Trump’s looming Senate impeachment trial.

“I hope, pray, and believe there's a decent chance that four Republicans will join us. If they do, we will have a fair trial,” Schumer told ABC “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos, referring to the minimum number of Republicans that would need to cross party lines to force a vote on Democrats’ demands for four top White House officials to testify at the trial.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Schumer remain at an impasse over the rules governing the trial. Schumer and Senate Democrats are pushing for witness and documents to be produced at the onset of the yet-to-be-scheduled trial, while McConnell and Republicans maintain that the decision to call witnesses should be made once the trial has commenced.

Schumer, appearing on ABC’s “This Week” said a trial without the witnesses and documents that Trump has repeatedly refused to turn over to U.S. House investigators during the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry would ultimately result in “one giant cover-up.”

“You can't have a fair trial without witnesses and documents, particularly those that were right at the scene of the charges, but four Republican senators can join us,” Schumer said, adding that if any such Republicans side with Democrats on calling for witnesses and documents, “it doesn't mean they're going to vote to convict the president. It means we’ll hear all the evidence.”

Senate Democrats have been pressing for acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and former White House national security adviser John Bolton to testify about their knowledge of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. Democrats are also calling for the testimony of Michael Duffey, an official at the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Robert Blair, assistant to the president and senior adviser to Mulvaney, about their knowledge of Trump’s order to withhold nearly $400 million in federal aid to Ukraine last summer as he called on Ukraine’s president to investigate his Democratic political rivals.

The U.S. House in a party-line vote impeached Trump last month. The president has repeatedly stated that his request of Ukraine’s president to investigate Americans was “perfect” and has indicated he is optimistic he will be acquitted of wrongdoing by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Senate Democrats making the rounds on the Sunday political talk show circuit, questioned the timing of Trump’s recent order to kill a top Iranian official in a drone airstrike, while also noting that escalating tensions with Iran over the killing should not keep the trial from moving forward.

“I think our system is strong enough that we can do both,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. “I very much worry about what the president is doing right now to escalate tensions, and the likelihood of war with Iran. But our country will have to deal with both these issues at the same time.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), asked whether she believed that the airstrike in Iran was a strategy to distract from an upcoming impeachment trial, told CNN's "State of the Union": "I think it is a reasonable question to ask."

"Look at the timing on this," said Warren, a Democratic presidential candidate. "There was a reason that he chose this month, not a month from now, not a less aggressive, less dangerous response. He had a whole range of responses that were presented to him, he didn't pick one of the other ones, he picked the most aggressive, and the one that moves us closer to war."