WASHINGTON -- House impeachment managers, who spoke last week for 21 hours in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, haven't yet made a compelling case, U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., said Saturday in Washington.
Democratic calls for additional testimony in the trial also have been unpersuasive, he said.
"I haven't seen anything, up to this point, [indicating] that we need additional witnesses," the lawmaker from Rogers said.
If the record is incomplete, House Democrats are to blame, he suggested.
"I have concerns, especially hearing the testimony today, of how the House simply didn't do their job. They did this in a very rushed period," Boozman said.
Trump's attorneys, on the other hand, have been effective at poking holes in the case, Boozman said.
"I think the president's team today did a good job of explaining," Boozman said Saturday. "We heard a lot of half-truths with the Democrats and their arguments. Half-truths are very misleading. [Trump's lawyers] came back today and explained the rest of the story, and I think they did a really good job of rebutting some of the arguments that we've heard in the past three days."
After Saturday's arguments, Boozman defended Trump's decision to temporarily withhold military aid from Ukraine.
"Here's a president that, again, wants to use foreign aid very judiciously. If there's corruption involved, if others aren't paying the way, then I think the call was very appropriate," he said.
Ukraine experts may have disagreed with the decision, but that doesn't make the move an impeachable offense, Boozman said.
"Policy differences aren't impeachable. In fact, it's very clear in the Constitution that the president gets to set the policy regarding foreign affairs," he said.
In order to remove Trump from office, Democrats must persuade 20 Republican lawmakers to support it.
Thus far, opinion seems split along party lines.
Depending on who has the microphone, Trump is either a threat to the republic or the victim of a partisan vendetta.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is firmly in the latter category.
"There's not one person in that Senate chamber today that would want to go through the process that this president's had to go through," Scott said in an interview Saturday.
"It's wrong what [House manager] Adam Schiff has done. Nobody should get treated the way the president's treated."
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said Republicans are complaining about the impeachment process because Trump's defenses are weak.
"They have real trouble with the facts because the facts are pretty damning," he told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Democrats still hope to call witnesses and subpoena additional documents during the proceedings.
Outnumbered 53-47 in the Senate, they will need Republican help to obtain the additional information, But with help from four Senate Republicans they can prolong the proceedings and obtain additional materials.
"I still have some limited hope that we'll get that whether it's the fourth vote or the seventh vote. But three votes, obviously, aren't enough," Casey said. "It doesn't make much sense to me why you would not want to have a few relevant witnesses -- only four -- on a case that has such gravity to it and the documents that are relevant."
While Democratic opening arguments lasted late into the night Wednesday through Friday, the first day of Republican arguments wrapped up Saturday in time for lunch.
U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., called the two-hour Republican presentation "strikingly brief."
"I'm expecting a much more aggressive and fulsome case from the president's attorneys on Monday," he added.
Once the Republicans complete their opening arguments, senators will have 16 hours to ask questions, Boozman noted.
"I think there will be a lot of questions. I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't use most of that time," he said.
A Section on 01/26/2020