Impeachment may be in limbo, but Republicans aren’t writing off the chance to tell their side of the Ukraine story.
According to Breitbart, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures this week that Hunter Biden and the so-called “whistleblower” should be called to the Senate floor to testify in the impeachment trial if President Donald Trump wants.
The president and due process
Republicans repeatedly threatened to call Biden and the infamous Ukraine whistleblower throughout the three months of Democrat-controlled impeachment proceedings, but Democrats denied Republicans an opportunity to call either.
Now, with Republicans soon taking control of impeachment in the Senate, they will have their chance to shine a light on the former vice president’s son’s involvement with Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, as well as the mysterious whistleblower’s relationship with Adam Schiff (D-CA), among other topics.
But whether the GOP takes that chance remains uncertain. While Republicans have said that they have no appetite for a lengthy trial, some, including Cruz, aren’t writing off the prospect.
“If the president wants to call Hunter Biden, if the president wants to call the whistleblower, due process mandates we allow the president to present his case. We should do so,” Cruz said Sunday, according to Breitbart. “That is the question for the president and legal team.”
For his part, the former vice president has equivocated when asked if he will honor a subpoena from the Senate, saying he would answer “any subpoena” while emphasizing that the impeachment isn’t really about anything he or his son did in Ukraine, according to Fox.
The Democratic presidential candidate also tweeted that there is no “legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial,” adding that “this impeachment is about Trump’s conduct, not mine” after he told an Iowa newspaper that he would not testify.
Mutually assured destruction
The so-called whistleblower has long since vanished from the Ukraine narrative, and Democrats have consistently opposed calling the Bidens as a “distraction” from Donald Trump’s alleged crimes. But while Joe and Hunter Biden’s testimony is still being seen as a distinct possibility, the Senate GOP is eyeing a fast trial with few if any witnesses, The Hill reported.
Republicans appear to think that Democrats played themselves badly enough that a fast trial, sans Hunter Biden, is the safest bet to secure a win for Trump in 2020. What happens next remains uncertain amid an impasse sparked by Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) bizarre decision to withhold articles of impeachment indefinitely: Democrats have said that they will not proceed until Republicans can guarantee fairness, while Republicans have countered that Democrats undermined their case by denying Trump fairness in the House.
Republicans have made clear that they’re in no hurry to take up the articles, and many have said that Pelosi’s move is an admission of weakness. But while Trump’s acquittal is seen as a certainty, it remains to be seen if the Senate will get there swiftly or finally honor Trump’s wishes to get a full sounding of the allegations against the Bidens.
“If we go down in the witness path, we’re going to want the whistleblower. We’re going to want Hunter Biden,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade last week. “You can see here that this is the kind of mutual assured destruction episode that will go on for a long time.”
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