By Billy Badour
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, announced she has handed over the articles of impeachment to start the Senate trial against President Trump.
The impeachment articles were held for weeks after Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, stated that he’d be working in “total coordination” with the White House. Pelosi stated that she wanted to ensure a fair trial before sending the articles over.
McConnell’s coordination includes disallowing new witnesses to testify during the Senate trial.
Kim Klein, a political science professor at Delta College, had some comments regarding the Senate impeachment trial.
“There’s a lot of posturing going on. Impeachment is a political process, but in my opinion, this seems to be really pushing the envelope with how it’s setting up.”
A new witness who said that they’ll testify if subpoenaed is former national security adviser, John Bolton.
A former national security council official, Tim Morrison, testified that Bolton had a “one-on-one meeting” with Trump about the withheld Ukraine aid.
Democrats also want to call acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, senior adviser to the acting White House chief of staff, Robert Blair, and associate director for national security, Michael Duffy. All four have been named numerous times by other witnesses, so it is believed that they have key information on why the Ukraine aid was held.
On the topic of witnesses at the trial, Klein stated, “In order to come across as being fair, they should be called. If witnesses aren’t called it could feed into the narrative that the outcome of the trial was a foregone conclusion.”
To add new witnesses there needs to be a majority Senate vote to allow them. A majority Senate vote would include all Democrats and four Republicans.
The New York Times reported that three Republicans will likely vote in favor of witnesses. Those Republican Senators are Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, and Lisa Murkowski. This will leave the Senate split 50-50.
Former Rudy Giuliani associate, Lev Parnas, has turned over some documents and devices relating to the impeachment investigation. Among the evidence is a letter that Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, sent to Ukranian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
The letter stated that, “In my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent, I request a meeting with you on this upcoming Monday, May 13th or Tuesday, May 14th.”
This meeting was made to, “”get Zelensky [sic] to announce [sic] that the Biden case will be investigated.”
Arguably the most alarming evidence released was the fact that Parnas was in contact with Robert F. Hyde, a Republican running for Congress in Connecticut.
Hyde said that he had former U.S. ambassador, Marie Yovanovich, under physical surveillance in Ukraine, stating, “they will let me know when she’s on the move.” Hyde gave Parnas numerous updates on the then-ambassador’s position.
Hyde also stated that unidentified individuals, “are willing to help if we/you would like a price. Guess you can do anything in the Ukraine with money … what I was told.”
Hyde continued, “If you want her out they need to make contact with security forces.”
Klein said of these documents from Parnas, “The Ukranian government is looking into the surveillance of ambassador Yovanovitch. If that went on, that could be very dangerous. None of this is good, it just is not a good situation.”
Giuliani stated that he wanted ambassador Yavonovich removed as, “I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way. She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.”
Klein doesn’t believe the trial is going to go quickly whatsoever, stating it could take “as long as three or four weeks.” This is dependent on the rules of the trial and whether they call additional witnesses.
As for the eventual turnout of the impeachment process, Klein was not entirely optimistic but held out hope for the process.
“I don’t think that it’s going to meet the level of removal unless something else really comes out in the interim. However, there’s bigger things at stake here. We’re going to see how the Constitution stands up. As hard as this may be, that might be the one positive thing. There are provisions in the Constitution that check power, and that’s healthy, but they must be held up.”
Klein continued, “We can’t keep going down this road. We need closure one way or another. I think that it isn’t healthy for our country to keep dragging this out.”
The Senate impeachment trial begins on Jan. 21.
