WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is considering pushing off final acquittal in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial until next week under a proposal being negotiated Friday by party leaders.
The situation remained fluid, but senators have indicated they want more time to publicly debate the charges and air their positions on the coming vote, according to a Republican familiar with the proposal but unauthorized to discuss it. The person was granted anonymity.
The shift in timing ahead of Trump’s all but certain acquittal shows the significance of the moment bearing down on senators in voting that would bring to a close the third presidential impeachment trial in American history.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the offer to Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, the person said. Senators were debating it while the proceedings were underway on the Senate floor. Schumer had not yet agreed to it.
Trump still appeared headed for acquittal as senators prepared on Friday to reject efforts to call more witnesses and moved to start bringing the trial to a close.
Under the proposal, the vote on witnesses would still occur later Friday. But the Senate would resume Monday for final arguments, with time Monday and Tuesday for senators to speak. The final voting would be Wednesday.
The impeachment of the president is playing out in an election year before a divided nation. Caucus voting begins Monday in Iowa, and Trump gives his State of the Union address the next night.
The eventual acquittal was increasingly clear after key Republicans said Thursday night they had heard enough.
Eager for a conclusion, the president and his allies in the Republican majority are brushing past new revelations from John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, as well as historic norms that could make this the first Senate impeachment trial without witnesses.
In an unpublished manuscript, Bolton writes that the president asked him during an Oval Office meeting in early May to bolster his effort to get Ukraine to investigate Democrats, according to a person who read the passage and told The Associated Press. The person, who was not authorized to disclose contents of the book, spoke only on condition of anonymity.
In the meeting, Bolton said the president asked him to call new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and persuade him to meet with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was planning to go to Ukraine to coax the Ukrainians to investigate the president’s political rivals. Bolton writes that he never made the call to Zelenskiy after the meeting, which included acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. The revelation adds more detail to allegations of when and how Trump first sought to influence Ukraine to aid investigations of his rivals.
The story was first reported Friday by The New York Times.
In a statement on Friday, Trump denied the account in Bolton’s manuscript.
“I never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest corruption fighters in America and by far the greatest mayor in the history of NYC, to meet with President Zelenskiy,” Trump said. “That meeting never happened.”
Meanwhile, voting on the witness question was expected late Friday after hours of debate, with other Senate votes stretching well into the evening.
