Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), the No. 3 House Democrat, weighed in President Trump’s ongoing impeachment trial in the Senate.
Clyburn said Wednesday that even though the trial has been having “all kinds of twists and turns,” he argued that the verdict on Trump’s impeachment already has a “preordained conclusion.”
“All of a sudden now things are beginning to come out,” he told Hill.TV in reference to the trial before adding that he stills believes that “the conclusion is pretty much cut and dry.”
After a months-long investigation, House Democrats voted to impeach Trump on two counts: abuse of power for personal political gain and obstruction of Congress.
Now that the impeachment articles are in the Senate, Republicans in the upper chamber have grown increasingly optimistic about moving to quickly acquit Trump.
If the senators in the GOP-led Senate are able to defeat an effort to call in new witness or compel new documents, they could have the trial wrapped as soon as Friday.
“I’ll let you talk to Mitch McConnell, but I’m increasingly optimistic this ends Friday,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News on Tuesday.
Democrats, meanwhile, have been clamoring to have former national security adviser John Bolton appear as a witness in the trial.
According to a report by The New York Times, Bolton said in his forthcoming book that Trump sought to withhold nearly $400 million in security aid to Ukraine until the county agreed to open investigations into his political rivals.
The White House has since sent a letter to the former national security advisor seeking to block parts of the book from being published, arguing that it contains “significant amounts of classified information.”
—Tess Bonn
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