The Democrat Party Cannot Bring Many Witnesses To Trump's Impeachment Session

Trump impeachment trial proceedings (senate television)

JAKARTA - The United States (US) Senate has agreed on the procedure for the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. One of the regulations was that the senate rejected Democrats' request to summon several witnesses for questioning.

The leader of the Democrats, Chuck Schumer, previously filed witness summons and requests for documents from the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, and the Office of Management and Budget regarding Trump's dealings with Ukraine. But the Senate vote resulted in 53-47, which was not approved by the majority of the Senate, which was dominated by the Republican Party.

That means Schumer cannot seek testimony from White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former national security adviser John Bolton, White House aide Robert Blair, and White House budget officer Michael Duffey.

Senate chairman, Mitch McConnell, also revised the trial process to 48 hours. Each party gets 24 hours which will be carried out for six days. Where the previous plan was to listen to each party for two days.

The impeachment trial will be broadcast live on television. Submission of arguments will begin when the trial resumes, namely on Wednesday at 13.00 local time or Thursday 23 January 2020 at 01.00 WIB.

However, the Senator has not ruled out the possibility of presenting another witness and further evidence of the argument was presented in the first 16 hours. But Republicans are clinging to requests for Trump's lawyers to shut down Democrats' demands and evidence.

White House adviser Pat Cipollone, who is also Trump's lawyer, struck back at Democrats' accusations against the president and said Democrats never met the impeachment standards set out by the US Constitution.

"The only conclusion is that the president has done nothing wrong. There are absolutely no cases," Cipollone said.

Trump and his legal team are not under pressure and say that what the Democrats are saying about Trump and Ukraine is hearsay. Cipollone described the accusations of suppressing Ukraine as an illegal attempt to get rid of a democratically elected president and part of preventing Trump from being re-elected.

"They (Democrats) are not here to steal one election, they are here to steal two elections," Cipollone said.

Trump's personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said the White House was not allowed to present a lawyer during the impeachment trial. But the real reason was that the White House refused to participate in the hearing.

The hearing on Tuesday local time was the first day of an impeachment trial after the US House of Representatives impeached Trump in December 2019 for abusing power and obstructing congress. This impeachment trial is the third time in US history.

Democrats say the US president is abusing his power by withholding US security assistance while pressuring Ukraine to investigate its political rival, Joe Biden. Not stopping there, Trump also tried to cover it up by blocking an impeachment-related investigation.