UPDATED: Cocaine Mitch Deals
Monica Showalter sketches the outline of Mitch McConnell's impeachment trial rules at AmThinker: Cocaine Mitch hands the Democrats a dilemma . What's the dilemma? The dilemma is that McConnell intends to play fair, particularly with regard to witnesses.
Showalter quotes Axios re the witness rules:
Details: Under the resolution, House Democratic managers and Trump's defense team will each be given up to 24 hours over two days to present their cases.
Senators will then have 16 hours to submit their questions to Chief Justice John Roberts.
After the Q&A period, the Senate will vote on whether to consider and debate witness subpoenas.
If the Senate votes no, no one will be permitted to call for new witnesses or documents, according to a Republican leadership aide.
If the Senate votes yes, both sides will have an opportunity to motion to subpoena witnesses, then senators will debate and vote on them.
Then the Senate will vote on whether to convict the president and remove him from office.
As Showalter summarizes:
Hear that, Dems? You all can pick whether you want witnesses to testify, any witnesses you like, but if you do, you'll have to let the Republican majority do the same. Even-steven. That's a dilemma.
That's a dilemma because that's not how Dems play. We wouldn't be at this point if it were, as we saw throughout the House Impeachment Theater.
Consider the scenario Showalter draws out for us:
[The Dems] can have all the Bolton they like, but Republicans will be allowed to issue equal subpoenas to all the people Adam Schiff nixxed earlier - Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Eric Ciaramella, Schiff himself, John Brennan, James Comey, Alexandra Chalupa, a host of Ukrainian officials, maybe even the Ukrainian prime minister who says Trump did nothing wrong, all the people they wanted to call earlier.
If Democrats are hungry for Bolton, Republicans are even hungrier for all these witnesses they couldn't call the first time around.
The GOP witness wish list could only expose the whole Democrat-plotted rigging operation. It could expose the foundations of the whole slimey planned scam against Trump from the get-go. Sure, the Democrats could get their Magic Bolton. But then they'll have to choose between him and all the witnesses they don't want to see on the stands.
It goes to show that Cocaine Mitch knows how to deal and he's opted for the cleverest of solutions, giving the Democrats exactly what they want .... good and hard.
Read it all.
UPDATE: For anyone who hasn't seen this interview with John Ratcliffe is very good. Ratcliffe states among MANY other things that he expects a short trial, no witnesses called, and an early acquittal. Listen to him--this guy knows what he's talking about: