Witnesses are irrelevant for the Article of “Abuse of Congress” because everyone agrees the 2nd Branch is not above the 3rd and 1st branches. Democrats could have asked of litigate or subpoenas during the in Congress.
Their narrative was that asking for “executive” testimonies would delay the trial. Nevertheless they decided to wait one month to buildup a biased campaign in the media and take political advantage that contradicts their “national security” urgency narrative. If Bolton, Mulvaney or Parnas will be called to testify they can’t deny the transcript or either bring materials that are relevant for abuse of power because the term is vague, misleading and has no criminal value for litigation.
The unprecedented use of vague terms for the trial demonstrate that the impeachment mangers are trying to shake the trees and see if they can bring new witnesses along the process which is unconstitutional and “Lynch Mob” modus operandi.
The 17 witnesses brought so far can’t suffice and evidence that rises to any level of impeachable crime. Moreover, many “star-chamber” testimonies contradict the impeachment articles. The use of the articles shows that the allegations on quid-pro-quo were baseless to begin with and therefore they switched the articles on the fly.
As Prof. Truly stated, the abuse of power was done by Congress. The true agenda of the impeachment is to push a political narrative with no true evidence intended to change the 2020 elections and the use of FISA, Mueller, the IC, Ukraine and Russia to change the outcome of 2016 or 2018 elections using spies in the IC, bureaucracy, document forgers, smear campaigns, social media shadow banners, political entrappers, Antifa violence or vote fraud.
“Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and the sole Republican witness at Wednesday’s impeachment hearing, cautioned against impeaching President Trump for obstruction and said that Democrats would be abusing their power by not allowing the courts to rule on subpoenas.”
https://www.axios.com/jonathan-turley-impeachment-democrats-01a2f2f7-834f-4d90-bd01-3932cca63383.html#
McConnell can put to vote immediately to dismiss on the article of abuse of Congress and then move to the other article. In order to assure fair trial Republicans can ask 17 new witnesses to testify and rebuke the first 17. The first 17 witnesses brought to the congress which Democrats can be called by managers again or by the white house team as witnesses, They are good defence witnesses because they contradict each other and debunk the articles. Yovanonvitch still has to follow up her testimony and let the American people know:
- How the state department coached bureaucrats to cover up the Biden scandal and other scandals in China, Iran, Chalupa’s Ukraine, Russia and Steele’s UK.
- What was in her “do not prosecute list”
- What was her role with Kerry, HRC and the Whistle blower entourage.
Schiff and Nadler are fighting over who is taking lead while the others don’t know exactly what legal arguments they can bring and what is their role.
Related Links and Sources
Senate Rules on Impeachment
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senate-sets-impeachment-trial-rules-that-postpone-vote-on-witnesses
McConnell Timeframe
https://theweek.com/speedreads/890557/mcconnell-plans-speedy-impeachment-trial