Senators Rain Questions On Trump Lawyers And Impeachment Managers In Marathon Session

Senators, on Wednesday, pelted questions at both the impeachment managers who made the case for Trump’s removal from office and the president’s defense team who rebutted the House’s charges. It was the first chance they got, after being bystanders in the impeachment trial for nearly two weeks.

The first-day in a two-day question-and-answer session in the Senate saw the Senators ask more than 90 questions in a roughly 10 hour-long session as they tried to poke holes in the case made by the opponent party. But, the Senators did not do so directly. The questions that were written down by the party leaders were read aloud by Chief Justice John Roberts.

The questions covered a spectrum of top targets from both sides, including former national security adviser John Bolton, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and the anonymous whistleblower.

Most of the questions that the senators asked, were directed to their own parties. They acknowledged later that it was to help their side expand their case and counter the false arguments presented by the opposing party.

“The reason we directed so much of our questions to the House managers is because they needed the chance to rebut the false arguments, the fallacious reasoning, the half truths and even no truths that the three days of the president’s counsel made,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told The Hill.

According to Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), the strategy could “evolve” on the second day, as it was important to control to dynamic in any type of debate or courtroom consideration.

However, not all senators were willing to play the same game. A trio of Republican senators Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah) asked some tough questions right off the bat.

Collins posed a question to President Trump’s attorneys, on behalf of herself, Murkowski and Romney, asking how the senators should approach the first article of impeachment if Trump had potentially multiple motives.

"If President Trump had more than one motive for his alleged conduct, such as the pursuit of personal political advantage, rooting out corruption and the promotion of national interests, how should the Senate consider more than one motive in its assessment of Article One?" NBC News quoted the question asked by the trio.

In another instance, Collins and Murkowski questioned whether Biden had been discussed by Trump in his conversations of Ukrainian corruption before the former Vice President announced his presidential campaign.

Trump’s defense team was unable to answer the question properly as they couldn’t cite a specific instance where Trump had done so.

As the first day of question-answer session came to an end, Senators remained divided over the issue of impeachment. However, the GOP members were confident that they would be able to block a call for a witness in the trial.