Former Vice President Joe Biden has dashed Senate Democrats’ hopes that he might submit to a witness trade, testifying in front of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in return for testimony from former White House national security advisor, John Bolton.
Biden was asked about the deal during a campaign stop in Iowa, and while he admitted that the issue wasn’t “irrational” he claimed Trump’s trial centered around a “Constitutional issue,” rather than one involving his and his son’s work in Ukraine. Testifying in front of the Senate, Biden added, would turn the trial into “some kind of farce or political theater,” as if it wasn’t already headed in that direction.
CBS News captured the exchange.
Watch: @JoeBiden says NO DEAL to the idea him or his son Hunter would testify for the Senate impeachment trial in exchange for other witnesses like John Bolton. Biden in part said this is a "farce" & "political theater" @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/8QHXQLIE9d
— Bo Erickson CBS (@BoKnowsNews) January 22, 2020
Ultimately, Biden says, he wants “no part” of any deal that would require he testify so that a White House official would also take the stand.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz floated the idea initially but, according to reports that surfaced yesterday, a group of Senate Democrats were seriously considering a testimony trade just so that Senate Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, would cave to the idea of hosting some witness testimony during the Senate impeachment trial.
Democrats have been desperate to find some way to get witnesses on the Senate floor, ostensibly to help close holes left in the Democrats’ case against the president from the House impeachment inquiry. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tried, valiantly, to force McConnell to welcome testimony by withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate, but even moderate Republicans, who were the deciding factor, said they’d prefer the case be set out in full by the Senate impeachment managers.
On Tuesday, in a vote that came near midnight, the Senate voted against allowing witness testimony during the first part of Trump’s Senate trial, but several Senators — including those same moderate Republicans — reserved the right to reverse their vote if, after the two sides present their opening arguments, questions remained about the president’s behavior.
Tuesday night, Democrats met in secret to discuss the Biden for Bolton trade (though, at the time, it wasn’t clear whether they would have given up Joe Biden or his son Hunter, whose involvement in Ukrainian oil and gas company, Burisma, is at the center of what Democrats claim is a “quid-pro-quo” agreement between Trump and the Ukrainian government, foreign aid in return for an investigation into both Bidens’ roles in how Burisma was treated by Ukrainian prosecutors back during the Obama Administration.
Democrats in charge of the trial seemed reticent to ink the deal and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), one of the House’s seven “impeachment managers,” openly decried the issue, calling it “irrelevant.” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), a key “Resistance” figure in Congress added that Hunter Biden’s testimony would be “irrelevant,” and that only Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney would need to testify.
If the Senate does vote to allow witnesses, it will be up to Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, to determine which witnesses are “relevant” to the task at hand.