Senate votes to summon impeachment trial witnesses, extending trial indefinitely
The Senate voted 55-45 to summon witnesses in former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, extending it indefinitely.
House lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin on Saturday called on senators to vote to subpoena a GOP witness and gather evidence in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, said he wants the authority to subpoena Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Washington Republican who disclosed a conversation between Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that took place during the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
“After the breach and invasion took place he was not working on the side of defending the Capitol,” Raskin said of Trump. “But rather, he was continuing to pursue his political goals, and the information that came out last night. This piece of evidence is relevant to that.”
Beutler, in a statement Friday, said she has disclosed many times over the past month her knowledge of the McCarthy-Trump conversation.
“When McCarthy finally reached the president on Jan. 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol,” Beutler said. “McCarthy refused that and told the president that there were Trump supporters. “That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said, ‘Well Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.'”
Trump’s defense lawyers argued if Democrats call witnesses, they will summon their own long list of witnesses.
Saturday’s vote extends the trial beyond the weekend, when it was expected to wrap up with a likely vote to acquit the former president on inciting an insurrection ahead of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
It’s not clear when or where witnesses will be interviewed. Raksin suggested Zoom, but Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen said witnesses would have to be deposed in his office in Philadelphia.

