DC bureau chief for The Intercept: Impeachment managers became ‘like the dog who caught the car’ when permitted to call witnesses

D.C. bureau chief for The Intercept Ryan Grim on Tuesday discussed the second impeachment acquittal of former President Trump, saying that House impeachment managers had been impeded by indecisiveness regarding the choice to call witnesses forward.

Speaking on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Grim described House impeachment managers, which included Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.), Joaquin Castro (Texas) and Madeleine Dean (Pa.), as being unsure of whether or not to call witnesses forward.

When the Senate ultimately voted to allow witnesses to be called, Grim said the House managers “became sort of like the dog who caught the car. They’re like, ‘Well, now what do we do? Because now Republicans are threatening that they’re going to call 200 different witnesses.'”

Grim notes that it is not unusual for a political party that is within the minority to threaten procedural actions that would “gum up” sessions.

“And so they just decided ‘You know what, we don’t actually know what we’re going to do next,’ and they just rested their case without, without pulling any of the … kind of stranger moments that you could imagine unfolding throughout the course of the day,” Grim said.

The Senate acquitted Trump for a second time Saturday after the Democrats failed to acquire the needed 67 votes to convict him. Seven GOP senators voted to convict, making it the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history.