It Just Looks Like One On TeeVee

https://t.co/bW0rlvtyFf

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 8, 2021

Your timely reminder that impeachment "trials" are not legal proceedings. In no court in the land does the jury decide the rules of the trial and proceedings, or get to decide who will, or will not, be a witness. Or whether there will be witnesses at all.

They could call witnesses to establish the fact that he was delighted by what was happening - people fighting for him, and the vote delayed - but that’s unlikely to happen. One fact to remember - both he and Giuliani called senators as the vote was delayed. https://t.co/96Li2NDqWM

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 8, 2021

Calling witnesses might be possible if 50 Senators plus the VP vote for it.  I honestly don't know what the rules are.  It might take a larger majority than that.  If that's all it takes, there's still the delay involved, especially if witnesses refuse to testify and fight subpoenas (provided the Senate agrees to issue subpoenas).  Again, this is not a court proceeding, where subpoenas to testify issue as a matter of course, and their enforcement is a swift matter of the court defending its turf.  Delay is something the Democrats really don't want to get tangled up in; partly for Biden's agenda, partly because this is a TeeVee trial.  Too many delays and the audience stops paying attention.

Also notable: in a court proceeding, those Senators would be witnesses. Not in an impeachment trial, though. Not if they don't want to be.

My only point is this is a knowable thing, if people actually want to know it, contrary to what the former president’s brief says.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 8, 2021

The only club the House Managers have is to make that knowable thing an unavoidable thing. Probably not in the Senate, but maybe in the general elections next year.  And the only way they do that is to put so much information in their presentation that Trump's lawyers can't possibly knock it down.  It's a variant on the old story attributed to LBJ, who told an aide to start a scurrilous rumor about a political opponent.  "But sir!," the aide objected.  "That's not true!"  "I know it's not true!," Johnson replied.  "I wanna see him deny it!"  In this case, the allegations are true (we have the tapes), and watching Trump deny it, in detail, just reminds people who deep in it he was.

It's pretty much all they've got.  Because, this is not a legal proceeding.