President Trump just about derailed his own impeachment trial defense on Wednesday, reports Politico.
From thousands of miles away at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump blindsided Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans who’ve made it clear they want a short trial and a speedy acquittal — and who won an early-morning, party-line vote for trial rules aimed at those goals.
“After Trump’s legal team emphatically supported McConnell’s organizing resolution setting up a potentially speedy trial, the president mused in Davos on Wednesday morning about going the ‘long way’ on his trial,” Politico says, “with testimony from a ‘a lot of people.’”
Those people could include witnesses sought by Democrats, like former national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
In interviews before House Democrats’ opening trial arguments, the political website said, “Republicans empathized with the president’s call for new testimony. But they also said that they will tune out any outside noise if they can — including the running commentary from a president who demands party loyalty — and potentially wrap up the trial far more quickly than Trump desires.”
The president is clearly agitated over the trial. According to a comment on Twitter, Trump set a new one-day tweeting record for his presidency on Wednesday.
“There’s obviously a frustration on [Trump’s] part that makes him just want to get everything out in the open,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) told Politico. “But we have an obligation to conduct the trial in the way that in our judgment is most appropriate.”
Yet Trump’s seemingly off-the-cuff comments underscored the challenges for Republicans trying to work “with an outspoken and erratic president right in the middle of an effort to oust him from office — all in an election year to boot,” Politico says.
So what is Trump’s motivation?
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said that for Trump personally, “there’s some value in a process that not only acquits him but exonerates him. That’s a legitimate internal conflict.”
Characteristically, the president appeared to back away from his own position later in the day, when he told Fox News that “”it would be very bad for the Republican Party if we lost that great unity that we have right now” by voting with Democrats for witnesses.
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) seemed to sum up the Republicans’ consternation over Trump’s mercurial behavior, saying he assumes “there is some method” to the president’s remarks.
