Congressmen call for subpoenas of witnesses just hours before impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump are set to end
Several US congressmen on Friday night called for witnesses to be subpoenaed during the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, which were scheduled to conclude on Saturday with the parties' final arguments.
These calls, which could lengthen and change the course of the impeachment trial, come after CNN published new details of a telephone conversation between Trump and Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the Lower House, which occurred during the assault on the Capitol on 6 January.
According to these new details, corroborated by other Republican congressmen, when McCarthy contacted the president to ask his followers to call off the assault, he refused. "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are angrier about the election than you are," Trump reportedly replied to McCarthy.
The content of this call came to light after the end of the fourth day of the impeachment trial against Trump in the Senate, focused on the defence of the former president (who barely used 3 of his 16 available hours) and the question and answer session.
With no witnesses scheduled to be called, the trial is expected to end on Saturday with the final arguments from both sides and a vote of conviction or acquittal.
That question-and-answer session, however, also generated unease among Republican senators, as Trump's lawyers questioned whether one of the lawmakers alerted the president that his vice president, Mike Pence, was in danger.
The senator in question, Tommy Tuberville, received a call from Trump during the raid that was intended to prod him to delay the certification of Joe Biden's victory, but he responded that Pence had just been evicted.
Minutes later, Trump posted a message on Twitter criticising his vice president as the mob stormed Congress shouting "let's hang Mike Pence".
Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse reacted Friday night to the new developments and called for "suspending the trial and subpoenaing McCarthy and Tuberville under oath". "Tomorrow just got a lot more interesting," he said on Twitter.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen also supported subpoenaing witnesses in an interview with CNN.
Meanwhile, Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of ten who voted with Democrats in favour of impeachment in the lower house, urged Trump officials in a statement to tell what they know. "To the patriots who were at the former president's side while these communications were happening, or even the former vice president, if you have anything to add, now would be the time," said Beutler, who corroborated the contents of the call between Trump and McCarthy.
Both parties have opted for a speedy trial in principle without witnesses as Democrats want to focus on Biden's legislative agenda and Republicans want to turn the page on the assault as soon as possible.
To convict Trump would require 17 of the 50 Republican senators to vote with the Democrats against the former president, something that until Friday seemed highly unlikely.