US Senate in deadlock over how to proceed with President Trump's impeachment trial amid dispute over whether top White House aides will be called as witnesses
US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to reporters as he departs the Senate floor in the US Capitol in Washington, January 3, 2020.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said the trial could not begin without the articles of impeachment, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not yet sent to the Senate. But McConnell and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer have been at loggerheads since late last year over how it should be conducted.McConnell said on Friday the Senate should go ahead and start the trial and resolve the dispute over witnesses "mid-trial," a repetition of his earlier stance. He said this would follow the precedent set in former President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial two decades ago. Clinton, a Democrat was acquitted by the Senate.
"It may feel like we are no longer, we are no closer to establishing the rules for a Senate trial than when we last met, but the question, the vital question of whether or not we have a fair trial ultimately rests with a majority of the senators in this chamber," Schumer said. The actual impeachment trial in the Senate would need a two-thirds majority vote for a conviction, requiring more than 20 Republicans to break with their party to remove the president.Schumer said Trump administration correspondence released this week bolstered Democrats' case that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine in an effort to pressure Kiev to investigate the Bidens.
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