McConnell Denies Schumer’s Request for Witnesses’ as Power Shifts to the Senate
After weeks of being railroaded by a Democratic-led House of Representatives, President Trump finally has some legislative support as the impeachment proceedings are about to shift to the Senate. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the Senate majority leader, wasted no time showing who was in control on Tuesday, flatly denying Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) request for new witnesses.
Mitch McConnell calls House impeachment effort "most rushed, least thorough and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history."
— ABC News (@ABC) December 17, 2019
"Its slapdash work product will be dumped on us over here in the Senate." https://t.co/OrKisBI3W8 pic.twitter.com/I6npVvCFIr
After Schumer requested additional witnesses who did not testify in front of the House, McConnell told Fox News Radio, “Well, if we go down in the witness path, we’re going to want the whistleblower. We’re going to want Hunter Biden. You can see here that this is the kind of mutual assured destruction episode that will go on for a long time. We know how it’s going to end. The president’s not going to be removed from office. The only issue is how long do we want to take to get a final decision. I think that we’ve heard enough.”
JUST IN: Mitch McConnell rejects Chuck Schumer's call to have White House witnesses like Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton testify in the Senate's impeachment trial. https://t.co/B5gDUtVW0x
— Axios (@axios) December 17, 2019
He also criticized Schumer for wasting the Senate’s and America’s time saying, “He wants to volunteer the Senate’s time and energy on a fishing expedition. It’s not the Senate’s job to leap into the breach and search desperately for ways to get to guilty. That would hardly be impartial justice.”
The battle between the two Senate leaders is certainly a precursor of what is to come as the impeachment witch hunt moves from the House this week to the Senate where the official trial is presumed to begin sometime in January 2020.