The US Senate late on Friday narrowly rejected Democratic demands to summon witnesses for US President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, all but ensuring his acquittal in the third trial to threaten a US president’s removal in US history.
However, US senators moved to push off final voting on his fate to Wednesday.
The delay in timing showed the weight of a historic vote bearing down on US senators, despite prodding by the president eager to have acquittal behind him in an election year and ahead of his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
Under an agreement to be voted on Friday night, the trial would resume tomorrow for final arguments, with time tomorrow and Tuesday for senators to speak.
Friday’s effort to allow new witnesses was defeated 51-49 on a near party-line vote. Republican US senators Susan Collins and Mitt Romney voted with the Democrats, but that was not enough.
Despite the Democrats’ singular focus on hearing new testimony, the Republican majority brushed past those demands to make this the first impeachment trial without witnesses.
Even new revelations on Friday from former US national security adviser John Bolton did not sway Republican senators, who said they had heard enough.
That means the eventual outcome for Trump would be an acquittal “in name only,” said US Representative Val Demings, a US House of Representatives prosecutor, during final debate.
Some called it a cover-up.
US Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called Friday night’s results “a tragedy on a very large scale.”
Protesters’ chants reverberated against the walls of the Capitol.
However, Republicans said Trump’s acquittal is justified and inevitable.
“The sooner the better for the country,” said US Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump confidant. “Let’s turn the page.”
The next steps are to come in the heart of presidential campaign season before a divided nation. Democratic caucus voting begins tomorrow in Iowa and four Democratic candidates have been chafing in the Senate chamber rather than campaigning.
Trump was last month impeached by the House on charges that he abused power and obstructed US Congress like no other US president has done as he tried to pressure Ukraine to investigate former US vice president Joe Biden and then blocked the congressional probe of his actions.
The Democrats had badly wanted testimony from Bolton, whose forthcoming book links Trump directly to the charges.
However, Bolton would not be summoned and none of this appeared to affect the trial’s outcome.
In an unpublished manuscript, Bolton wrote that Trump asked him during an Oval Office meeting in early May last year to bolster his effort to get Ukraine to investigate Democrats, according to a person who read the passage and told The Associated Press.
The person, who was not authorized to disclose contents of the book, spoke on condition of anonymity.
Separately on Friday, the Trump administration announced that it was restricting immigrants from six additional countries that US officials said failed to meet minimum security standards.
Immigrants from Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania are to face new restrictions in obtaining certain visas to travel to the US, the officials said.
However, it is not a total travel ban, unlike Trump’s earlier effort that generated outrage around the world for targeting Muslims.
Trump also relaxed restrictions on the US military’s use of anti-personnel land mines, arguing that the previous policy could put US troops at a “severe disadvantage.”
The move was criticized by arms control proponents and underscores the US administration’s willingness to upend policies set by Trump’s Democratic predecessor, former US president Barack Obama, in the face of concerns about the dangers such weaponry poses to civilians long after conflicts end.
“The president’s decision to roll back the policy on anti-personnel land mines is as perplexing as it is disappointing, and reflexive and unwise,” US Senator Patrick Leahy said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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