At some point, Republicans will have to choose either a cover-up or more damning evidence. jonathanchait writes
Mitch McConnell. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images The first day of President Trump’s impeachment trial centered on the rules of evidence. Democrats want to admit documents and testimony the administration has blocked, and Republicans want to, well, block them. So far, Mitch McConnell is winning. He held his entire caucus together in a series of votes to block any new evidence from being admitted before the trial begins.
From the outset, Trump announced that he was declaring his conduct in the Ukraine affair exempt from any congressional investigation or scrutiny. The president not only refused to personally testify but ordered his bureaucrats to likewise boycott all congressional proceedings, and blocked all documents.
The House has attempted to navigate its way through the too-fast, too-slow dilemma. It concluded that enough evidence had made its way through Trump’s obstruction — bureaucrats willing to defy the president, public statements by Trump and his associates — to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Democratic case is fairly clear: The evidence they managed to obtain proves Trump’s guilt, but if Republicans aren’t satisfied, they should examine the rest of the evidence. The Republican case for withholding it is absurd. McConnell has attacked the House case as a “shoddy work product” and “the most rushed, least thorough and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history,” while blocking all efforts to broaden it.
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