Impeachment Reached, Con't

Mitch McConnell figured the Bolton kerfuffle would be over now and the rest of the Senate GOP would fall in line with the Trump acquittal plan for Friday.  It hasn't, so he's put out the call to the Right Wing Noise Machine to bombard Senate GOP offices with angry, angry FOX News State TV viewers to go on the assault.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) indicated in a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans that he did not yet have enough votes to defeat an effort, expected later this week, to call additional witnesses and evidence in President Trump’s impeachment trial.

Pressure has ramped up to include witnesses after reports that former national security adviser John Bolton says in a book manuscript that Trump directly tied the holdup of nearly $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine to investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Trump’s defense team argued Tuesday that Democrats are seeking to remove him from office over policy differences as they offered their third and final day of opening arguments in a Senate trial on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Meanwhile Lindsey Graham is working Democrats in the room to get them to drop it, warning that Bolton will never be allowed to speak and instead the trial will turn into weeks of Joe Biden bashing.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) predicted on Tuesday that if the Senate opens the door to calling new witnesses, Republicans will vote to subpoena President Trump's top targets.

“I'll make a prediction: There will be 51 Republican votes to call Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, the whistleblower and the DNC staffer at a minimum,” Graham told reporters.

His comments come as former national security adviser John Bolton’s claim in his forthcoming memoir that President Trump tied Ukraine aid to the country opening up investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

GOP leadership had hoped to end the trial with no witnesses, but Bolton's accusation, reported by The New York Times, has thrown the ability of the caucus to quickly end the trial into question.

Conservatives are warning that if four Republican senators side with Democrats to call Bolton, then Trump's legal team should get as many witnesses. Since Democrats would not support calling the Bidens or the whistleblower, Republicans would have to provide the 51 votes from their 53 members.

The Senate is expected to vote Friday on whether to call witnesses. If 51 senators support calling witnesses, that would open the door to both sides making motions for specific individuals. The Senate would then vote on those specific individuals.

THe unspoken threat here is that Bolton will be blocked or put in closed door testimony, while Biden and the whistleblower will be raked over the coals.  Sen. Hawley says he will force a vote on Joe Biden and Adam Schiff, too, which may very well pass.

Again, there's a method to Mitch's madness.  He doesn't want any testimony, but if there is, Democrats will pay dearly for it.