"In what kind of trial..."

In what kind of trial is hearsay your only evidence?

If these were criminal charges a judge wouldnt even sign the damn warrant

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In what kind of trial is hearsay your only evidence?

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A non-judicial, political proceeding in which the evidentiary rules are not applicable.

I posted the following on another thread some time ago, and a few people found it helpful. Maybe the same will be true for you.

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you must remember that this is NOT a judicial proceeding and that (while there are some analogies) it is NOT a criminal prosecution.

The arguments we have been hearing for three days and WILL be hearing for another three days are NOT “evidence.”. They are each side’s summaries of the hundreds of hours of testimony and thousands of pages of evidence already “admitted“ in the House.

There is an underlying assumption that each side will highlight that portion of the House record which best serves its own purposes. The Senators are presumed to have access to the entire record. Incidentally, reliance upon the House record is one reason that the unfair Dem practices in the House were so problematic.

The whole “witness” issue in the Senate thus has two branches.

The first ties to the Dems. They had every chance to call witnesses in the House, so it seems reasonable to limit them in the Senate to only witnesses or testimony which (for whatever reason) was not available to them during House proceedings.

The second ties to the GOP. Normally, they should be subject to the same standard, but the Dems basically precluded them from developing evidence in the House, so there is a decent argument that they should have greater leeway in the Senate.

Thus, two questions arise. First, do they even NEED witnesses? Davy addressed that question quite well. The second question is whether the less-zealous-for-Trump Senators are willing to hear from witnesses of questionable direct relevance.

In a real legal proceeding, the single question would be whether Trump had objective evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens when he requested help from Ukraine, but of course this is not a legal proceeding. Set that aside for a moment.

If we use that standard, I think ALL GOP Senators would vote in favor of testimony from a new witness who had been suppressed by the Dems but who provided Trump a pre-Zelensky-call briefing about Biden wrongdoing. However the Bidens themselves have nothing to add on that point. Thus, there is a dispute among the GOP as whether to allow their testimony

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"in what kind of trial" does the lead prosecuting attorney also serve as a fact witness?

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In what kind of trial..."

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Does the jury get to approve what witnesses the defense can call?

I understand this not a "typical trial" so could both sides please dispense with the "what kind of trial" BS. That was my point.

I guess the biggest question, at least to me, is are they allowed to conduct new discovery during the trial. Because, that would basically be what they are trying to do by bringing in new witnesses.

Also, would the Senate be able to kick the proceedings back to the House if it is determined that new witnesses should be called forward?

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Senators are presumed to have access to the entire record.

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I realize it's a presumption, but would this also mean the Senate would have access to all of the testimony that was conducted in the bunker that the House Reps were unable to review?

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Every post on this thread simply demonstrates that the impeachment process is not a judicial process.

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No not a typical one, but it uses terms like 'trial', 'high crimes', 'misdemeanors', it has a 'judge', and these are terms that are shared with the criminal justice system. Because it uses terms of this nature it seems to me that it is intended to be more than a popularity contest for the Congress to judge. We have this thing called an 'election' for that.


So, we have this thing that is neither fish nor fowl. It's rarely used and therefore precedent for its operation is thin. It's like exploring barely charted territory. If we had more practice, we'd be better at it but this is a thing we have been loathe to practice at. Unfortunately, it looks like the appetite to practice it is growing, and that is not good.

An impeachment trial.