GOP Senators Plan for Acquittal After Witness Vote – Impeachment End Game in Sight

If the vote to call witnesses fails, Senate GOP leaders might pursue a quick end to the ongoing impeachment trial.

Vote to Acquit Could Come as Early as Friday

Politico reports that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is mulling over using procedural moves to end debate and vote for Trump’s acquittal. It is expected that the vote to call witnesses will fail and Democrats will be unable to introduce more evidence. If that happens, Senator John Barrasso says the vote to acquit could come as early as Friday.

“The question is going to come to ‘Have you heard enough to make a decision or do you want witnesses?’ If people say, ‘We’re ready to vote,’ we’re going to vote right then,” said Barrasso.

RELATED: Report: Mitch McConnell Plans to Acquit Trump on Impeachment Charges

Politico reports, “Barrasso suggested that an acquittal vote could take place as soon as Friday — if senators don’t agree to subpoena additional witnesses or documentary evidence. Under the organizing resolution that controls the proceedings, Democrats could offer additional motions if the Senate votes down deposing additional witnesses — including former national security adviser John Bolton — but Republicans could then move to shut down debate and call for an up-or-down vote on acquittal.”

“We would,” said Sen. Joni Ernst of the quick acquittal vote. “If it fails, no more witnesses, no more documents. Then we would, I would think … I would imagine that then we would roll into that.”

If Democrats were to try to stall, it would be seen as a partisan attempt to hurt Trump. Democrats might want to go ahead and end this fiasco and risk doing any further damage to their party as the 2020 election nears.

RELATED: After Their Rush to Judgment, Democrats Now Seek to Stall on Impeachment

Please, Just Stop Already

Senate Democrats are already trying to figure out how to outwit McConnell if Republicans pursue this strategy.

“So the rules would have the vote on the articles come up immediately after a failed vote on witnesses. I think we are exploring what our options would be if we lost that witness vote,” said Sen. Chris Murphy according to Politico. “McConnell I would imagine would go straight [to the acquittal vote]. The rules don’t provide for anything.”

After Trump’s lawyer’s presentation, there are supposed to be 16 hours of questions to the House managers that will no doubt be highly scripted by both sides.

And so on, and so on. Can we just end this already?