As the U.S. Senate adjourned early Wednesday after 11 hours of debating ground rules for the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, Sen. Patrick Leahy had a private conversation with the president’s White House counsel, Pat Cipollone.
Cipollone asked Leahy, the dean of the Senate, for his comparison of Trump’s trial to that of former President Bill Clinton.
“Mr. Cipollone came over to talk with me last night and asked me what I thought of different things going on,” Leahy said in an interview Wednesday.
“He appreciated the fact that the first time he met me that I carried out the first few sentences of our meeting in Italian. He didn’t realize that my Italian grandparents emigrated to Vermont from northern Italy and we had to speak Italian with them,” the Vermont Democratic senator added.
Hours earlier, Leahy had rebuked Cipollone for falsely claiming House Republicans were not allowed to hear private testimony during the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Trump.
We just recessed for a short time. I would hope later today and in the days ahead, the President’s lawyers remember they are addressing the United States Senate, and personal insults and falsehoods will not serve them well. https://t.co/xQofP3ydQe
— Sen. Patrick Leahy (@SenatorLeahy) January 21, 2020
“I would hope later today and in the days ahead, the President’s lawyers remember they are addressing the United States Senate, and personal insults and falsehoods will not serve them well,” Leahy tweeted.
Late Tuesday night, the Senate voted along party lines to move forward with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-Ky., guidelines for the trial, which dismissed demands by Democrats for testimony from key witnesses and the introduction of new evidence from the outset. The McConnell resolution postpones a vote on whether witnesses and documents will be considered until after opening arguments.
Leahy, again on Twitter, called McConnell’s framework a “sham trial resolution” and added it was “not a good day/night for the Senate.”
VTDigger reporter Kit Norton interviews Sen. Patrick Leahy
Leahy said he didn’t return home until around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday morning but was in the Senate gym six hours later, fielding questions from Republican colleagues.
“There were a number of senators there — Republican senators — all of whom wanted to ask what I thought, how this compared to last time,” Leahy said. “What will come of that, I have no idea.”
On Wednesday, the Senate plunged ahead with oral arguments from House members laying out the Democrats’ case that Trump was withholding military aid earmarked for Ukraine until the country’s president announced an investigation into the Biden family.
Under the rules adopted Tuesday, House Democrats can outline their evidence over three days, after which Trump’s lawyers can offer a rebuttal. The trial could end in two weeks or could continue much longer depending on whether Senate Republicans agree with their Democratic colleagues that new evidence should be reviewed.
With the Senate Republican rules in play, Leahy, who deposed key witnesses — including Monica Lewinsky — during the Clinton impeachment trial, has been left with a minor role in the Trump trial.
Leahy said if senators are allowed to ask questions and call for witnesses, then he will be active in the trial process; if not, he will simply serve as a juror.
“My role is simply to listen and to vote,” Leahy said. “I think it should be more than that.”
After oral arguments and questions, the introduction of additional witnesses and documents can be debated — for no more than four hours before it is voted on.
“I think it’s a very bad mistake — both for the country and for the Senate — for the Republican leader to block witnesses. That wasn’t done in the past,” Leahy said.
