Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts ought to demand that the Senate allow witnesses in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, former Rep. Mickey Edwards, R-Okla., said Monday.
Edwards, Georgetown University law professor Joshua A. Geltzer, and former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times following a report from the paper regarding an unpublished manuscript by former national security adviser John Bolton that shed new light on Trump's actions involving Ukraine.
The three note that under the Senate rules for impeachment, the presiding officer, who according to the Constitution is the chief justice, has the power to issue subpoenas for witnesses.
"With key Republican senators having told the American people that they prejudged the case against President Trump before it began and even working with Mr. Trump's lawyers to build the very defense for which they're supposed to be the audience, the notion that they're doing the 'impartial justice' they've sworn to do is very much in question," the three write.
They add that Senate Majority Leader Mitch "McConnell's rules separately say that the Senate shall debate 'whether it shall be in order to consider and debate under the impeachment rules any motion to subpoena witnesses or documents. That language cannot restrict Rule V's pre-existing empowerment of the chief justice to issue subpoenas. To amend Rule V requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate, something Mr. McConnell didn't get.
"That is presumably why the rules speak only to whether the Senate should subpoena witnesses or documents — but do not restrict the chief justice's ability to issue subpoenas under his Rule V authority. And that's precisely what the Democrats must ask him to do — now."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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