President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are reportedly sparring "under the water" over calling witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial, according to Politico.
Although Trump and McConnell are publicly in agreement about following the plan set out by Senate Republicans, "privately, Trump is still harboring a desire to create a flashy, testimony-filled trial, fueled by a belief that such an approach would vindicate him and embarrass Democrats," according to six unnamed people who are familiar with the situation, three of whom have spoken to Trump.
Senate Republicans would like to avoid hearing testimony from these witnesses, preferring a short and speedy trial than the drawn-out trial that Trump believes will exonerate him.
“We did nothing wrong. So, I’ll do long, or short. I’ll do whatever they want to do. It doesn't matter,” Trump said to reporters last week.
However, Trump recently tweeted that "The reason the Democrats don’t want to submit the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate is that they don’t want corrupt politician Adam Shifty Schiff to testify under oath, nor do they want the Whistleblower, the missing second Whistleblower, the informer, the Bidens, to testify!"
“There’s a family feud under the water between what Trump and McConnell think is the best strategy,” said Dan Eberhart, a major contributor to the GOP and the CEO of oilfield services company Canary, LLC.
"I think there’s been a transformation over time, simply because now I think there’s a realization that witnesses are a double-edged sword and adds to the time,” Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said on Wednesday, after a lunch meeting between Republican senators and Trump aides. "Somewhere there’s been a rethinking of that."
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