Our live coverage has ended. Scroll through the posts to read more about the impeachment trial of President Trump.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, Republican from Tennessee, just announced he will vote against witnesses and documents.
Here’s what he said in his statement:
Here’s what this means: With Alexander announcing he is a no on witnesses and documents, and Sen. Susan Collins announcing that she is yes, it means there are 50 votes against moving ahead, and the impeachment trial will likely end as early as Friday night. Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she will announce her vote on witnesses tomorrow morning.
As he departed the Capitol on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would not say whether he is confident he has the votes to block witnesses in the impeachment trial.
But he did say: “Tomorrow will be a big day.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she does not plan to announce her decision on the witness vote tonight, only saying she was going back to her office to “keep reading.”
When asked if she plans to announce in the morning, she said “yeah.”
When asked which way she’s leaning, she said, “I’m going to go read my volumes here,” and got on the Senate subway.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the moderate Republican, said late Thursday she would vote in support of witnesses in the impeachment trial.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a key Republican swing vote, says she will continue to reflect on the trial so far before making her views on witnesses known.
Sen. Lamar Alexander said his statement will come within the hour. He said he has told Mitch McConnell his decision.
Asked if it was a difficult decision, he said he will let it speak for itself.
The senators asked 87 questions in today’s session.
They asked 93 questions yesterday, for a total of 180 questions asked over the two-day question-and-answer session.
The trial resumes Friday at 1 p.m. ET.
The question-and-answer portion of the trial has ended. The Senate has adjourned until 1 p.m. Friday.
House manager Jerry Nadler closed out the question-and-answer portion of the trial by stating that there is “only one relevant question” for the senators to consider.
Nadler said:
Nadler added that the President’s team is “afraid of the witnesses” like John Bolton because they “will only strengthen the case” to remove Trump.
Sen. Lindsey Graham and several other Republican senators — including closely watched GOP members Lisa Murkowski and Lamar Alexander — asked the President’s team about what relevant testimony John Bolton might provide if he were called as a witness.
Here’s how they worded their question:
Assuming for argument sake that Bolton were to testify in the light most favorable to the allegations contained in the articles of impeachment, isn’t it true that the allegations still would not rise to the level of an impeachable offense, and that, therefore, for this and other reasons, his testimony would add nothing to this case?
Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin repeated the oft-talking point from the President’s team that there was “no quid pro quo.”
He said that even if you take everything Bolton alleges as true, his allegations “don’t as a matter of law rise to the level of an impeachable offense” because the House has not “characterized them as involving a crime.”
Philbin continued: “But taking for the sake of argument the question as phrased, even if Ambassador Bolton would testify to that, even if you assumed it were true, there is no impeachable offense stated in the articles of impeachment.”
The House managers were next asked to respond to the President’s team.
Rep. Adam Schiff said the White House’s response to the senators’ question was basically, ‘Too bad, there’s nothing you can do. That’s not impeachable.”
Schiff added that the President’s counsel’s argument is: “‘The President of the United States can withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in aid that we appropriated, can do so in violation of the law, can do so to coerce an ally in order to help him cheat in an election and you can’t do anything about it…That’s non-impeachable.’”
“I think our founders would be aghast,” he added.
As his impeachment trial continued into the night, President Trump in Iowa attacked Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead impeachment manager from the House.
“Shifty Schiff is a very sick person,” the President told the crowd in Des Moines.
“He lies awake at night shifting and turning. Shifting,” Trump said, turning his arm in circles. “Shifting and turning in his bed, sweating like a dog.”
Trump then launched into a very animated impression of Schiff, crying, “‘How am I going to get him? How am I going to get him, he didn’t do anything wrong!’”
“Oh what a sick guy he is,” the President said to cheers and laughs from the crowd.
In response to a question from Democrats asking what the Senate owes to the American public to ensure that all relevant facts are made known in this trial and not at some point in the future, Schiff reiterated his case to spend a week on witnesses.
Schiff said the Constitution gives the Senate “the sole power” to make the decision about witnesses.
The senators are back from a brief break. The question-and-answer part of the trial now continues.
Mitch McConnell just announced a five minute break. After that, they’ll resume the question-and-answer portion of the trial.
Speaking off-camera to reporters, Senate Majority Whip John Thune detailed the plans for Friday night — assuming the witness vote goes down. This is still fluid, and there is still a fair amount of uncertainty, according to Thune.
But the process he laid out potentially looks like this:
He said that after four hours of debate, there would be a vote on whether to call witnesses and seek documents.
Assuming that fails, he thinks that each side may want to huddle and discuss their next steps.
Then, he thinks that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would make a motion to go to final arguments, where both the House managers and defense team would make their final cases.
But that motion to go to final arguments is amendable, he said. That means Democrats could offer any number of amendments to drag out the proceedings.
If the senators decide they want to deliberate, they can vote to go into closed session. Thune made clear he does not favor going behind closed doors.
He said there’s significant support in the GOP conference to going to the final votes tomorrow night, no matter how late it is. He sidestepped a question about the optics of acquitting Trump in the dead of night. But he said it’s always possible that a final vote could be delayed to Saturday depending on how things go.
Trump says that Iowa Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst are not at tonight’s rally in Des Moines because they are in Washington “fighting for fairness, fighting the hoax, fighting for all of us.”
Here’s what he said:
During a campaign rally in Des Moines, President Trump went after Democrats in Congress for the impeachment trial underway in Washington. “We’re having probably the best years in the history of our country, and I just got impeached. Can you believe it?” he asked.
“We got accountability for the vets, but they impeach the President — but no, that’s not gonna work,” Trump said, adding, “They want to overthrow the entire system of government — but that’s not happening. Washington Democrats have spent the last three years trying to overturn the last election.”
Trump then said, “This is a happy period for us. We call this impeachment light. Crazy Schiff…Shifty Schiff. But you know what? Today I hit my highest poll numbers since I got elected. The American people, and frankly people around the world, know it is a hoax. ”
He predicted a straight sweep for Republicans in the November election, saying the GOP would win the House, the Senate and he would stay in the White House.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Republican from Alaska, asked counsel for the President to explain why they think the Senate should not call John Bolton to testify.
Here is how Murkowski, a closely watched swing vote on the question of witnesses, worded her question about Bolton:
You explained that Ambassador Sondland and Senator Johnson both said the President explicitly denied that he was looking for a quid pro quo with Ukraine. The reporting on Ambassador Bolton’s book suggests the President told Bolton directly that the aid would not be released until Ukraine announced the investigations the President desired. This dispute about material facts weighs in favor of calling additional witnesses with direct knowledge. Why should this body not call Ambassador Bolton?
Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin responded, “I think the primary consideration here is to understand that the House could have pursued Ambassador Bolton.”
He continued: “The House considered whether or not they would try to have him come testify and subpoena him. They chose not to subpoena him.”
Philbin added that the Senate has to consider the precedent that will be set by how they vote on witnesses. “Because whatever is accepted in this case becomes the new normal for every impeachment proceeding in the future,” he said.
President Trump and his team are not concerned about Alan Dershowitz’s controversial defense of the President’s alleged quid pro quo, a White House official said.
“Not at all,” the official said.
Dershowitz told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he hadn’t heard from Trump after his comments on the Senate floor on Wednesday but that he had no indication the President was upset.
Speaking from Miami, Dershowitz said his absence from the trial today was not a sign he was being sidelined. He said he had unalterable plans to be in Miami for the Super Bowl with his family.
Watch Dershowitz’s former student challenge his legal argument:
The question-and-answer session has resumed.
Senators are continuing to ask questions of both the House managers and President Trump’s defense team.
