Thursday, January 30, 2020

Joe Biden's candidacy justifies Trump wanting to investigate his son, Alan Dershowitz says


Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a member of President’s Trump's impeachment defense team, argued Wednesday that former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy justifies the president wanting to investigate his son Hunter's involvement with a Ukrainian oil company.
“The fact that he’s announced his candidacy is a very good reason for upping the interest in his son,” Dershowitz said, adding that the House managers would agree that Trump running for re-election is the only reason it could be an impeachable offense.
Dershowitz asserted that, hypothetically, if Trump wanted Hunter Biden investigated for alleged corruption in his second term it wouldn't be impeachable.
“The difference, the House managers would make, is whether he’s in his first term or his second term, whether he’s running for re-election or not running for re-election," he said. "If he’s running for re-election suddenly that turns it into an impeachable offense."
Dershowitz added that even if there was a quid pro quo by withholding $391 million in military aid to Ukraine it wouldn’t matter because “if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
He suggested Trump’s alleged request for investigations during the July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a “mixed motive,” meaning Trump believed it would benefit both the country and incidentally himself.
The House managers have argued that Trump abused his power in asking Ukraine to meddle in a U.S. election by investigating the son of his political rival.
"If you say you can’t hold a president accountable in an election year where they are trying to cheat in that election, then you are giving them carte blanche,” House manager Adam Schiff responded. “So all quid pro quos are not the same. Some are legitimate, and some are corrupt and you don’t need to be a mind reader to figure out which is which.”
Democrats have also said that if Trump was legitimately concerned about corruption involving Hunter Biden, he should have called for the Justice Department to launch an official investigation.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey trips over her dog, fractures shoulder: reports


Gov. Kay Ivey warned Alabamans on Wednesday that they can expect to see her with one of her arms in a sling following a Tuesday night fall.
The governor said in a statement that she expects no disruption of her work schedule after tripping over her dog Missy and fracturing one of her shoulders, Birmingham's FOX6 reported.
“Alabama’s First Dog Missy is such a fun and active friend to have at home, and she is fiercely protective,” Ivey wrote. “Last night, she unintentionally tripped me up, and I hit my shoulder. You’ll see me in a sling, but this won’t slow me down a bit! I’ll keep you posted on the recovery, but most importantly, Missy is also doing just fine!”
It wasn’t clear from the statement or from local news reports whether the governor’s left or right shoulder was injured.
The governor is expected to deliver the annual State of the State address next Tuesday, FOX6 reported. On Wednesday, Ivey congratulated President Trump after he signed the USMCA trade agreement.
"What an exciting day for our country as @POTUS officially signs #USMCA!" the governor wrote. "Alabama is grateful for the hard work & leadership of @realDonaldTrump & all involved for bringing this monumental deal to fruition. Thank you for supporting the American people!"
Ivey, 75, a Republican, became Alabama’s governor in April 2017 following the resignation of her predecessor, Robert Bentley. She was then elected outright in November 2018. 

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey speaks to the media in Montgomery, Ala., Nov. 17, 2017. (Associated Press)
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey speaks to the media in Montgomery, Ala., Nov. 17, 2017. (Associated Press)

Earlier this month Ivey announced she had received a positive report from her doctor following radiation treatment for a cancerous spot found on one of her lungs, according to AL.com.
In November 2018, Ivey’s 14-year-old Chow mix, named Bear, died after a struggle with some health issues, AL.com reported. Ivey had adopted that dog from a local veterinarian after it was struck by a car, the report said.

Justice Roberts blocks Sen. Paul from naming whistleblower, source says -- and Paul may force the issue


Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts blocked Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul from posing a question during the Senate impeachment trial Wednesday that would have named the alleged whistleblower at the center of the case, Fox News is told -- and Paul may try to force the issue during the question-and-answer session that begins Thursday afternoon.
Roberts, for now, has ball control because he actually receives the questions in note cards from senators, then reads the question aloud in the Senate chamber to be answered by either House Democratic managers or Trump's defense team. But, Fox News has learned Roberts may soon lose his grip on the proceedings amid a torrent of criticism both inside and outside the Senate.
The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis condemned what he called Roberts' "arbitrary and unilateral censorship of senators and Senate business," and reported that Roberts had initially sought to block even general questions of the intelligence community whistleblower. When Republicans threatened a vote rebuking Roberts on the record, Davis reported, Roberts backed down and decided only to prohibit mentioning the whistleblower's name.
A reporter for Roll Call observed that during a break in the trial Wednesday, Paul was fuming.
"I don't want to have to stand up to try and fight for recognition," Paul shouted, according to reporter Niels Lesniewski, who noted that Paul's complaint was "audible from the galleries above the chamber."
"If I have to fight for recognition, I will," Paul said.
Asked by Fox News whether Paul, who has long raised concerns about possible intelligence community overreach, would press the issue during the upcoming question period, a spokesman for the senator told Fox News only, "tbd" -- short for "to be determined." Last year, Paul was vocal about wanting testimony from the whistleblower on the record.
"If I have to fight for recognition, I will."
— Kentucky GOP Rep. Rand Paul
Roberts, under the Constitution, presides over the impeachment trial. But the precise contours of his authority are not clearly established, and remain up for debate; Democrats have even said they will attempt a long-shot motion to give Roberts the unprecedented power to approve or reject witnesses, for example.
Federal law protects whistleblowers only from retaliation in the workplace, and does not ensure their anonymity; and Republicans have disputed whether this particular whistleblower would even qualify for those limited protections, saying his complaint concerns a policy dispute and does not allege criminal or civil wrongdoing by the president.
Republicans have sought more information on the whistleblower ever since the intelligence community's internal watchdog found several indicators that the person might have a political bias. Fox News has previously reported the whistleblower is a registered Democrat and had a prior work history with a senior Democrat running for president.
The whistleblower's attorney, Mark Zaid, openly admitted back in 2017 that a "coup" had started against the president from within the administration, and that CNN's coverage would play a "key role" in the effort.
He also openly solicited intelligence community members to help impeach and "get rid" of Trump, years before Trump's call with Urkaine's leader that triggered the current impeachment proceedings.
Additionally, Zaid acknowledged that the whistleblower had contact with a prominent Democratic presidential contender, amid reporters that he had served closely with Joe Biden when he was vice president. Trump's alleged pressure on Ukraine to investigate Biden is at the center of the current probe.
Conspicuously, Democrats' lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has made public inconsistent statements concerning the House Intelligence Committee's contacts with the whistleblower. Schiff first denied that his panel had such contact, then reversed course and admitted that members of the committee had spoken to the whistleblower.
It could be, Republicans have asserted, that the whistleblower coordinated his complaint with Schiff's panel for partisan reasons -- a disclosure that, if true, would likely undermine the credibility of the impeachment proceedings and possibly expose Schiff to his own "abuse of power" allegations. Thus far, the impeachment effort has arguably been elevated in importance from normal partisan bickering in part by the gravitas afforded to the supposedly well-meaning whistleblower at the center of the case.
On Wednesday, Schiff again denied knowing the identity of the whistleblower, even as Republicans accused him of deliberately lying. Schiff repeatedly shut down GOP questions during the House impeachment proceedings concerning White House leaks -- even though doing so at one point seemingly demonstrated that Schiff likely knew the whistleblower's identity.
“Lietenant Colonel Vindman, did you discuss the July 25 phone call [between Trump and Ukraine's president] with anyone outside the White House on July 25 or the 26 and if so, with whom?” Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes asked last year.
“Yes. I did,” Vindman, who has also claimed not to know the whistleblower's identity, responded. He said he had spoken to Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent but, before he could mention the other person, Schiff intervened and urgently blocked the questioning.
“We need to protect the whistle-blower," Schiff interjected. "Please stop. I want to make sure that there is no effort to out the whistle-blower through these proceedings. If the witness has a good faith belief that this may reveal the identity of the whistle-blower, that is not the purpose that we’re here for. I want to advise the witness accordingly.”
Roberts has mostly stayed out of the spotlight in the trial. In the first day of the proceedings, Roberts admonished both sides for misconduct in the chamber, saying their rhetoric had gotten too heated. That warning reportedly came after a "stunned" Republican Sen. Susan Collins passed a note to Roberts, following Democrats' claims that a vote against their witness resolution would amount to a "coverup."
Wednesday's lengthy question-and-answer session contained other notable moments, including another spirited constitutional argument by liberal Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz.
Multiple media outlets, including CNN, mischaracterized Dershowitz throughout the day as saying that presidents can do "anything" as long as they can argue it's in the "public interest." In fact, Dershowitz maintained that criminal or criminal-like conduct is impeachable, regardless of its motivation.
Instead, Dershowitz asserted the Senate should not be in the business of removing presidents based on nebulous and unconstitutional "abuse of power" charges that the framers expressly rejected. It would be a standard Democrats would not want applied to their own presidents, he argued.
To demonstrate that point, Dershowitz made thinly veiled references to President Obama's refusal to send lethal military aid to Ukraine, as well as his failed, unenforced "red line" warning for Syria not to use chemical weapons. Obama was also caught on a hot microphone promising Russia's president he would have "more flexibility" on missile defense issues after the 2012 election.
"Let's consider a hypothetical," Dershowitz said. "Let's assume that President Obama had been told by his advisors that it really is important to send lethal weapons to the Ukraine. But then he gets a call from his pollster and his political adviser, who says we know it's in the national interest to send lethal weapons to the Ukraine, but we're telling you that the left-wing of your party is really going to give you a hard time if you start selling lethal weapons and potentially get into a lethal war with Russia. Would anybody here suggest that is impeachable?"
He continued: "Or let's assume President Obama said, 'I promise to bomb Syria if they had chemical weapons. But I'm now told by my pollster that bombing Syria would hurt my electoral chances.' Simply not impeachable at all."
It would be difficult if not impossible, Dershowitz said, to determine that a president has acted with corrupt "motive," given that countless presidents inevitably consider both the national interest and their personal political gain when making decisions. Rarely do presidents act with purely corrupt or purely noble motives, he said. Often, he went on, presidents want to help themselves but in doing so believe they are also helping the country.
There were signs Dershowitz's argument was making headway among moderate swing-vote GOP senators. Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins was reportedly "clearly unhappy" with Democrats' explanation as to why they had not charged actual crimes in the articles of impeachment, and was shaking her head while they answered her question on the topic by claiming their allegations were "akin" to criminal conduct, Roll Call's Todd Ruger reported.
When House Democratic impeachment manager Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., claimed "all scholars" except for Dershowitz agreed that impeachment didn't have to involve crimes or criminal-like conduct, there were audible groans from the GOP side of the chamber.
Dershowitz rose, turned to Nadler, and said he was simply ignorant of the facts.
"By the way, the congressman was just completely wrong when he said I'm the only scholar who supports this position," Dershowitz said. "In the 19th century, which is much closer in time [to the founding of the country and the drafting of the Constitution,] Dean [Theodore] Dwight of the Columbia Law School wrote that 'the weight of authority,' by which he meant the weight of scholarly and judicial authority, this is in 1867, is in favor of requiring a crime. Justice [Benjamin Robbins] Curtis came to the same conclusion."
Dershowitz reiterated that the "abuse of power" charge was vague and indeterminate, and was precisely the kind of article of impeachment that the framers wanted to reject -- as evidenced by their explicit repudiation of the charge of "maladministration,' which he said is synonymous with "abuse" or "misconduct" in office.
He then took a shot at fellow Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe for being a partisan hack, and warned that scholars often have partisan biases, too. Dershowitz noted that he voted for Hillary Clinton and would be making the same argument if she were on trial.
Later, Dershowitz deployed another hypothetical to argue that Democrats' impeachment was itself, somewhat ironically, a partisan proceeding.
"Let’s assume hypothetically that the president was in his second term and he said to himself, you know, Joe Biden is running for president," Dershowitz said. "I really should now be concerned about whether his son is corrupt, because he’s not only a candidate ... but he could be the President of the United States, and if he’s the president of the United States and he has a corrupt son, the fact that he’s announced his candidacy is a very good reason for upping the interest in his son."
Dershowitz continued: "If he wasn’t running for president, he’s a has-been. He is the former vice president of the United States. Okay, big deal. But if he’s running for president, that’s an enormous big deal. So the difference the House managers would make is whether the president’s in his first term or his second term, whether he’s running for reelection or not running for reelection. I think they would have to concede that if he was not running for reelection, this would not be a corrupt motive, or it would be a mixed motive, but leaning on the side of national interest. If he is running for reelection, suddenly that turns it into an impeachable offense!”
Schiff rose to claim that Republicans surely would have impeached Obama if he sought to tie financial aid to a foreign country to secure a probe into Romney; he did not address Dershowitz's argument that such an impeachment, too, would be improper.
A string of newly resurfaced video clips of former national security adviser John Bolton spurred Trump and his supporters Wednesday to highlight what they described as Bolton's serious credibility questions amid the Senate impeachment trial, as the president tweeted, "GAME OVER!"
In his tweet, Trump linked to an interview of Bolton in August 2019 where he discusses Ukraine policy. In the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty interview clip, Bolton made no mention of any illicit quid pro quo, and acknowledged, as Republicans have claimed, that combating "corruption" in Ukraine was a "high priority" for the Trump administration.
Bolton also called Trump's communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "warm and cordial," without mentioning any misconduct. It seemingly contradicted reported assertions in Bolton's forthcoming book that Trump explicitly told him he wanted to tie military aid to Ukraine to an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden. (Zelensky has said his communications with Trump involved no pressure for any investigation.)
Fox News later identified clips of Schiff, D-Calif., now the lead House impeachment manager, in which he says Bolton had a distinct "lack of credibility" and was prone to "conspiracy theories." This week, Schiff said Bolton needed to testify in the impeachment trial as an important and believable witness.
"This is someone who's likely to exaggerate the dangerous impulses of the president toward belligerence, his proclivity to act without thinking, and his love of conspiracy theories," Schiff told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on March 22, 2018, when Trump named Bolton national security adviser.
"And I'll, you know, just add one data point to what you were talking about earlier, John Bolton once suggested on Fox News that the Russian hack of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] was a false flag operation that had been conducted by the Obama administration," he said. "So, you add that kind of thinking to [former U.S. attorney] Joe diGenova and you have another big dose of unreality in the White House."
Schiff made similar arguments back in May 2005, saying in an interview with CNN's "Crossfire" that Bolton was "more focused on the next job than doing well at the last job" when he was up for nomination as ambassador to the United Nations under then-President George W. Bush.
"And particularly given the history, where we've had the politicizing of intelligence over WMD [weapons of mass destruction], why we would pick someone who the very same issue has been raised repeatedly, and that is John Bolton's politicization of the intelligence he got on Cuba and other issues, why we would want someone with that lack of credibility, I can't understand," Schiff had said.
Bolton himself had admitted in the past that he would be more than willing to lie if he felt it was in the nation's best interest.
“If I had to say something I knew was false to protect American national security, I would do it," Bolton said in an interview with Fox Business in 2010.
But, speaking to CNN on Monday, Schiff took a different approach -- calling Bolton essential to the "search for truth."
"I think for the senators, and I'm just not talking about the four that have been so much the focus of attention, for every senator, Democrat and Republican, I don't know how you can explain that you wanted a search for the truth in this trial and say you don't want to hear from a witness who had a direct conversation about the central allegation in the articles of impeachment," Schiff said on CNN's "New Day."
Seemingly responding to charges of hypocrisy, Schiff remarked on the Senate floor late Wednesday: "I'm no fan of John Bolton, but I like him a little more now than I used to."
Whether or not the Senate will vote to call Bolton as a witness -- or whether he will legally be able to testify -- remain open questions. Republicans have suggested that Schiff himself should testify.
Any witness resolution would likely require four Republican defections in the Senate, because in the event of a 50-50 tie, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts is highly likely to abstain rather than assert his debatable power to cast a tie-breaking vote.
The witness question will be decided later this week, after the question-and-answer session of the trial wraps up.
Republicans, who have a 53-47 majority in the chamber, have suggested to Fox News that they would amend any witness resolution that subpoenas Bolton to also require the appearance of several additional witnesses favorable to the Trump administration -- likely killing support in the Senate for the whole witness package altogether.
In the meantime, concerns over Bolton potentially divulging classified information, as well as violating the legal principle of executive privilege, have emerged. On Wednesday, the White House revealed it had told Bolton not to publish his upcoming tell-all book about his time in the Trump administration until classified material is removed from the manuscript.
“Under federal law and the nondisclosure agreements your client signed as a condition for gaining access to classified information, the manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information,” Ellen J. Knight, a National Security Council (NSC) aide, wrote in a letter to Bolton attorney Charles J. Cooper last week, which was obtained by Fox News.
Bolton’s book has disrupted Trump’s impeachment trial. The New York Times reported that Bolton's draft manuscript includes a claim that Trump explicitly linked a hold on military aid to Ukraine to an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden -- a central part of the case against Trump.
The letter from the NSC was transmitted to Bolton’s attorney on Jan 23. The New York Times article about the manuscript came out on Sunday, Jan. 26 -- three days after the letter was transmitted. That indicates that the NSC had already made the determination that there was top secret information in Bolton’s manuscript before anything became public.
Earlier in the day, CNN reported that the letter amounted to a threat against Bolton. But sources told Fox News this was not a “threat,” saying the letter merely points out that there is top secret information contained in the manuscript that cannot be released to the public.
Fox News' Chad Pergram and Sally Persons contributed to this report.

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Impeachment Cartoons





Whether to call Bolton, other witnesses roils Trump’s trial


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is shifting to questions from senators, a pivotal juncture as Republicans lack the votes to block witnesses and face a potential setback in their hope of ending the trial with a quick acquittal.
After Trump’s defense team rested Tuesday with a plea to “end now,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell privately told senators he doesn’t yet have the votes to brush back Democratic demands for witnesses now that revelations from John Bolton, the former national security adviser, have roiled the trial.
Bolton writes in a forthcoming book that Trump told him he wanted to withhold military aid from Ukraine until it helped with investigations into Democratic rival Joe Biden. That assertion, if true, would undercut a key defense argument and go to the heart of one of the two articles of impeachment against the president.
“I think Bolton probably has something to offer us,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Not in Trump’s view. “Why didn’t John Bolton complain about this ‘nonsense’ a long time ago, when he was very publicly terminated,” Trump tweeted shortly after midnight. “He said, not that it matters, NOTHING!”
The uncertainty about witnesses arises days before crucial votes on the issue. In a Senate split 53-47 in favor of Republicans, at least four GOP senators must join all Democrats to reach the 51 votes required to call witnesses, decide whom to call or do nearly anything else in the trial. Several Republicans apparently are ready to join Democrats in calling witnesses.

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The two days set aside for questions, Wednesday and Thursday, also allow each side more time to win over any undecided senators pondering the witness issue. In the meantime, all will have the opportunity to grill both the House Democrats prosecuting the case and the president’s defense team.
Held to submitting written questions to be read by Chief Justice John Roberts, senators are expected to dig into the big themes of the trial — among them whether what Trump did or may have done rises to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” — as well as pointed and partisan attacks on each side’s case.
Trump faces charges from Democrats that he abused his power like no other president, jeopardizing U.S.-Ukraine relations by using the military aid as leverage while the vulnerable ally battled Russia. Democrats say Trump then obstructed their probe in a way that threatens the nation’s three-branch system of checks and balances.
The president’s legal team tried to lock up its case Tuesday and convince GOP senators that the president was right to ask Ukraine for investigations of Biden and his son Hunter and was well within his power to block the aid. They said he was not bound to abide by the congressional investigation.

Lindsey Graham to John Bolton: 'Hold a news conference'



Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Tuesday called on former national security adviser John Bolton to hold a press conference to expand on a New York Times bombshell report that claimed Bolton wrote in his upcoming book that President Trump explicitly tied $391 million in Ukrainian military aid to investigating the Bidens.
“John, you’ve kind of thrown the country into a ditch here,” Graham told Fox News' Martha MacCallum. “Just come forward and say what’s on your mind, hold a news conference and we’ll consider what you’ve got to say if you think it’s that important."
Graham said from his point of view, he believes he has all the evidence he needs in Trump's impeachment trial, which he said he was optimistic would wrap up with an acquittal before the State of the Union next Tuesday.
He added that even if what Bolton said Trump did was true it wouldn’t be an impeachable offense.
The White House’s plans for a speedy trial without witnesses were thrown into doubt this week after the Times' report, which renewed calls from Democrats to subpoena Bolton who has said he is willing to be a witness.
Some moderate Republicans have said they might be open to hearing his testimony in the wake of the report and House Speaker Mitch McConnell reportedly said he didn't have the votes as of Tuesday to dismiss calling witnesses.
Graham said he blames House Democrats for not pursuing a Bolton subpoena in the courts.
Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff explained Democrats decided not to go through the courts to compel Bolton’s testimony because he believes it would be used as a stall tactic.
“If you argue that, well, the House needed to go through endless months or even years of litigation before bringing about an impeachment, you effectively nullify the impeachment clause,” Schiff said earlier this month. “You allow the president of the United States — by delay, by playing rope-a-dope in the courts — to defeat the power of the impeachment clause.”
Graham added that he would be open to calling Joe and Hunter Biden and the whistleblower as witnesses.
“It’s a partisan, political exercise,” he said of Trump’s impeachment, “that needs to die this week.”
Fox News' Marisa Schultz contributed to this report. 

Trump's defense did what it set out to do, Robert Ray says


Former federal prosecutor Robert Ray, a member of President Trump’s impeachment legal defense team, said the defense team did what they set out to do in their arguments that wrapped up Tuesday and said it is time to trust in the judgment of the senators.
“The task at hand is to have a trial to determine whether or not it’s appropriate to remove the president from office. Period. End of story,” he told Laura Ingraham. “Once you’ve made that argument…I think it’s time to sit down…and put your faith and trust in [the senators] and respect and abide by their wisdom.”
Ray said he thought they would know by Friday “after a very, very long day of debate” whether or not witnesses will be called. It was reported earlier that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he didn’t have the votes to block witnesses.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that in his upcoming book former national security adviser John Bolton said Trump explicitly conditioned $391 million in military aid to Ukraine to investigating the Bidens.
“I imagine for many senators how the questioning goes and the answers that are given over the next two days may have some bearing" on potential witnesses, Ray said. “It’s obviously their judgment to make.”
He added that during former President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment they “intently focused on the question: 'Why would we want to remove a president from office when there’s an election coming up' and as a result of that Ulysses Grant was elected president.”

GOP develops aggressive 'Plan B' in impeachment trial, as several Dems appear to support acquittal: source


With several Democrats openly floating the possibility they might vote to acquit President Trump, congressional Republicans are planning an aggressive "Plan B" strategy in the event some Republicans break off and demand additional witnesses in the president's impeachment trial, Fox News has learned.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., privately said early Tuesday that he wasn't sure there were enough Republican votes to block more witnesses, given that some moderates in the GOP's 53-47 Senate majority were wavering.  Any witness resolution would likely require four Republican defections in the Senate, because in the event of a 50-50 tie, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts is highly likely to abstain rather than assert his debatable power to cast a tiebreaking vote.
Late Tuesday night, a Senate leadership source told Fox News that Republicans were specifically assessing the viability of two alternative options.
One plan is to amend any resolution calling for a particular witness to also include a package of witnesses that assuredly wouldn't win enough support in the Senate. For example, if the Democrats seek to call former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Republicans might subpoena Hunter Biden over his lucrative board position in Ukraine, and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., over his inconsistent statements concerning his panel's contacts with the whistleblower at the center of the impeachment probe.
"After listening to the Dems’ 20+ hours of argument and the rebuttal arguments from @realDonaldTrump, I’ve got lots of questions for the Dems," tweeted Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley on Tuesday. "Like this one: Why did Schiff lie about his contact with the 'whistleblower'? More to come!"
The "package deal" proposal could afford moderate Republicans the political cover of supporting more witnesses in theory, while ultimately rejecting a witness package they deem flawed. Even if a witness package passed, the resolution could be written such that the witness phase of the trial ends immediately if a key witness, such as Hunter Biden, defies his subpoena.
The Federalist senior editor and Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway observed that in the House impeachment proceedings, Democrats allowed themselves to call significantly more witnesses than they afforded to their Republican colleagues -- raising the possibility Republicans could reasonably insist on an equally favorable "ratio" in the Senate trial when putting together a prospective package of witnesses.
A lopsided ratio in favor of the GOP also could lead some Democrats to oppose a witness package.
Another option, the congressional leadership source told Fox News, is for the White House to assert executive privilege to block witnesses, including Bolton. The administration could head to court to obtain an emergency injunction against his testimony, citing national security concerns. Trump has said he is concerned about his former top advisor potentially spilling national security secrets, and the legal principle of executive privilege has long shielded executive branch deliberations from disclosure.
That might end up in a court battle, and could prove dicey if Bolton opts to go rogue and defy the White House's assertion of privilege as it makes its way through the courts.
Meanwhile, Politico reported on Tuesday that Democrats were apparently divided over whether to remove Trump from office on the charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power -- neither of which is a defined federal crime. Moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin, Doug Jones, and Kyrsten Sinema were all weighing votes to acquit Trump on at least one of the two articles of impeachment, the outlet reported.
“I know it’s hard to believe that. But I really am [undecided]. But I have not made a final decision. Every day, I hear something, I think ‘this is compelling, that’s compelling,’” Manchin said. “Everyone’s struggling a little bit.”
That news came shortly after a disputed Los Angeles Times report that California Sen. Dianne Feinstein was considering a vote to acquit the president. Feinstein later said she was "misunderstood."
GOP senators were similarly all over the map on Tuesday as Trump’s defense team called Bolton’s new manuscript “inadmissible” and warned against opening the door to new wild-card information in the ongoing trial.
Trump told Bolton in August, according to an excerpt of Bolton's forthcoming book reviewed by The New York Times Times, "that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens." Republicans and liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz have countered that, even if true, the allegations do not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
The White House has also argued that Bolton may have leaked the manuscript to improve sales of his book, which went live for pre-orders on Amazon just hours after the Times report broke.
"Why didn’t John Bolton complain about this “nonsense” a long time ago, when he was very publicly terminated," Trump tweeted late Tuesday. "He said, not that it matters, NOTHING!"
And, Republicans have reiterated, it would be legitimate for Trump to probe the Bidens' possible corruption for public policy reasons, given that Joe Biden openly boasted about successfully removing the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company where his son Hunter obtained a lucrative board position with no relevant experience. Biden was overseeing Ukraine policy when his son got the job at the Ukrainian company, which raised red flags at the time in the Obama administration.
Nevertheless, several Republicans have indicated they would be interested in hearing what Bolton has to say, at least in some capacity, and they left the door open on Hunter Biden.
Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, for his part, raised questions even as he denied widespread reports saying that he wanted to call more witnesses. Cassidy insisted that he wanted to wait until the end of the written question period of the trial to decide on witnesses.
That less-than-strenuous denial led Sean Davis, the co-founder of The Federalist, to argue that Cassidy was issuing a "Romney-esque non-denial," especially for a Republican in a deep-red, pro-Trump state.
Meanwhile, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., called for Bolton’s unpublished manuscript to be made available for senators to read in a classified Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) to understand what Bolton was alleging. His proposal got an ally in influential Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who called the idea a “reasonable solution.”
Some senators suggested that Bolton just spill the beans in a news conference on the sidelines of the impeachment trial -- a proposal that could lead to legal questions concerning both executive privilege and classified information.
Bolton's manuscript is currently in a "pre-publication review" at the National Security Council, which functions as the White House's national security forum. Such a review is standard for any former government official who held security clearances and publicly writes or speaks publicly about their official work.
The review focuses on ferreting out any classified or sensitive material in advance of publication and could take from days to months.
“The Wall Street Journal has called for John to just come forward -- just tell the public what you know,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said. “I think that actually [would] be a smart thing. I’d encourage John to do that without involving the trial.”
Separately, Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, who delivered a spirited constitutional defense of the president on Monday night in the impeachment trial, took aim at Elizabeth Warren after she said she couldn't follow Dershowitz's argument.
"He is a criminal law professor who stood in the well of the Senate and talked about how law never inquires into intent and that we should not be using the president's intent as part of understanding impeachment," Warren said Monday. "Criminal law is all about intent. Mens rea is the heart of criminal law. That's the very basis of it. So it makes his whole presentation just nonsensical. I truly could not follow it."
Dershowitz replied on Twitter that Warren, who formerly taught at Harvard Law School, "doesn't understand the law" and had "willfully mischaracterized" his argument.
“If Warren knew anything about criminal law she would understand the distinction between motives – which are not elements of crime—and intent, which is. It’s the responsibility of presidential candidates to have a better understanding of the law,” Dershowitz said.
On Monday, flatly turned toward House impeachment managers and declared they had picked "dangerous" and "wrong" charges against the president -- noting that neither "abuse of power" nor "obstruction of Congress" was remotely close to an impeachable offense as the framers had intended.
In a dramatic primetime moment, the liberal constitutional law scholar reiterated that although he voted for Hillary Clinton, he could not find constitutional justification for the impeachment of a president for non-criminal conduct, or conduct that was not at least "akin" to defined criminal conduct.
"I'm sorry, House managers, you just picked the wrong criteria. You picked the most dangerous possible criteria to serve as a precedent for how we supervise and oversee future presidents," Dershowitz told the House Democrats, including head House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
He said that "all future presidents who serve with opposing legislative majorities" now face the "realistic threat" of enduring "vague charges of abuse or obstruction," and added that a "long list" of presidents have previously been accused of "abuse of power" in various contexts without being formally impeached.
The list included George Washington, who refused to turn over documents related to the Jay Treaty; John Adams, who signed and enforced the so-called "Alien and Sedition Acts"; Thomas Jefferson, who flat-out purchased Louisiana without any kind of congressional authorization whatosever; John Tyler, who notoriously used and abused the veto power; James Polk, who allegedly disregarded the Constitution and usurped the role of Congress; and Abraham Lincoln, who suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and others would also probably face impeachment using the Democrats' rules, Dershowitz said.
"Abuse of power," he argued, has been a "promiscuously deployed" and "vague" term throughout history. It should remain a merely "political weapon" fit for "campaign rhetoric," Dershowitz said, as it has no standard definition nor meaningful constitutional relevance.
Dershowitz then said he was "nonpartisan" in his application of the Constitution, and would make the same arguments against such an "unconstitutional impeachment" if Hillary Clinton were on trial -- passing what he called the "shoe on the other foot" test.
"Purely non-criminal conduct such as abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are outside the range of impeachable offenses," Dershowitz said.
Trump's lawyers wrapped up their opening arguments early on Tuesday. Starting on Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans will alternate in posing their questions to the House Democratic impeachment managers and Trump's legal team. Questions will be in writing, submitted to Roberts and read aloud. Senators do not pose the questions themselves. They must sign the questions, which may come from a group of senators or an individual senator.
Fox News is told to expect between 10 and 12 questions per side before a recess. There is no time clock as to how long counsel for both sides has to respond, but Roberts said Tuesday that based on the 1999 impeachment trial precedent, both sides should  try to limit their responses to five minutes.
At the same time, Roberts noted according to the Congressional Record from 1999, everyone laughed at that suggestion. Senators laughed on the floor again Tuesday when Roberts hinted at the unofficial time restriction. There can be no challenge of given answers by counsel for either side.
After written questions are over, the Senate will consider whether to hear additional documents and evidence. A final vote on the two articles of impeachment will follow, with a highly improbable two-thirds vote needed to convict and remove the president.
If, as expected, the Senate does not meet that threshold, Trump will have been formally acquitted.
Fox News' Marisa Schultz, Chad Pergram, and Fox Business' Hillary Vaughn, contributed to this report.

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