Senators from Kansas and Missouri vote against calling witnesses in Trump trial
All four senators from Kansas and Missouri voted against calling witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial Friday evening as the Senate rejected the motion.
Only two Republicans, Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, joined Democrats in voting to call witnesses as had been done in the previous two presidential impeachment trials. The motion failed 49-51 in what is a preview of how most senators will vote when the chamber likely votes to acquit Trump at the end of the trial.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, officially announced his intention to vote against the witness measure Thursday night after the Senate had concluded its questions to the U.S. House’s impeachment managers and the president’s legal team.
Moran, who voted to impeach President Bill Clinton as a member of the House in 1998, accused the House of shirking its duty to collect evidence to support its case against Trump. But he also argued that calling witnesses would not change the outcome.
“It became clear over the course of the House managers’ arguments that the House failed to undertake its responsibility to collect supporting evidence, and the managers continually attempted to shift that evidentiary responsibility to the Senate,” Moran said in a statement.
“Nevertheless, having heard from both sides, the arguments demonstrate that additional evidence or witnesses would not change the material underlying facts that describe the president’s actions.”
The Kansas senator has been tight-lipped throughout the trial. His office repeatedly said he was waiting to hear arguments from both sides before making his decision on witnesses, as had been done in the two previous presidential impeachment trials. CNN included Moran on a list of senators to watch on the witness issue.
Moran votes with Trump 83 percent of the time, but has occasionally split with the president. In 2017 he voted against a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and in 2019 opposed the president’s use of emergency power to shift funds designated for military construction projects to border security.
Despite his decision on witnesses, Moran would not officially say Friday morning that he planned to vote to acquit Trump when approached by The Star in the Senate basement.
Kansas’ other Republican senator, Pat Roberts, also voted against calling witnesses. Roberts, who will retire at the end of this congressional session, voted to remove Clinton from office during his 1999 impeachment trial.
In a statement Friday morning, Roberts echoed Moran in his dissatisfaction with the House investigation.
“After hearing the entire case presented, I believe we’ve heard all we need in this impeachment trial,” Roberts said. “The job of the Senate is not to make up for the lack of investigation conducted by the House. With what we have seen, it is clear witness testimony is unnecessary.”
On his way into the Capitol building Friday morning, Roberts was greeted by anti-Trump protesters singing “God Bless America.” He pretended to act as their conductor.
The decision by the senators to vote against witnesses comes after reports that former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s book manuscript includes an account of Trump telling him he wanted to freeze aid to Ukraine unless the country began investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.
Bolton declined to testify when called by the House for its impeachment inquiry last year. The House opted against court fights to compel Bolton and other witnesses to testify before its impeachment vote, a fact noted by senators who resent the expectation the Senate should take that step now.
Both of Missouri’s Republican senators made clear statements about their intentions to vote against witnesses in the days leading up to the vote.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, a member of GOP leadership, excoriated House Democrats in a Thursday morning interview with KCMO Talk Radio, contending that the House should have gone to court to obtain testimony from desired witnesses rather than shifting the burden to the Senate.
“The House has all the time in the world compared to us to put a case together. They have weeks, they have months. They can go to court. They can do all the things that take all this extraordinary time and they can be doing all their other work at the same time, but in our case once they send this to us we are pretty well stuck with it until we can come to a conclusion,” Blunt told host Pete Mundo.
“You can’t let the House think that they can send any half-baked case over to the Senate and the Senate will accept the obligation to make something out of it,” said Blunt, who voted to impeach Clinton as a member of the House in 1998.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, one of the Senate’s most outspoken critics of impeachment, took to Twitter to scold Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who has served as lead prosecutor for the House, after the Senate wrapped up its questions for both sides.
“As their case unravels, today Dems gave us a tour of leftwing conspiracy theories. Schiff said @realDonaldTrump stole 2016 election, said Trump has rigged 2020, berated senators for questions he didn’t like, & repeatedly used the word ‘coup.’ They’ve lost it. Let’s vote,” Hawley said.
Hawley had drafted language to call Schiff as a fact witness if the Senate had voted to call them. He also prepared motions to call Hunter Biden and the anonymous federal whistleblower whose complaint about Trump’s phone call with Ukraine set the House impeachment inquiry in motion.
Those motions will be unnecessary now after Friday’s vote.
Hawley’s campaign sent out a fundraising email Friday morning hours before the debate on witnesses was set to begin. Just above a blue donation button, Hawley expanded on his criticism of Democrats for their decision to pursue impeachment.
“At some point, Democrats will have to admit that this charade was ill advised, and that it’s really just a partisan attempt to overturn an election. Democrats don’t like President Trump. They have never liked him and they wanted to impeach him from day one. They were hell bent on doing it,” Hawley said in the email.
This story was originally published January 31, 2020 at 8:53 AM.
