唐纳德·特朗普总统的法律团队继续推动参议院彻底驳回针对他的众议院弹劾条款，并完全放弃可能导致无罪释放的审判，尽管共和党高级参议员拒绝了这一想法。
特朗普政府高级官员周三在电话会议上对记者表示:“[解雇案]证明并允许某人在关键时刻做出决定，这种决定实在太微不足道了，我们不应该在这上面花更多时间。”。“它不符合标准，我们应该把它扔掉。在这种情况下，这样做是合适的。”
总统的法律团队认为，在周四审判正式开始后，在某个时候会有机会驳回这些文章，这种观点在最近几天已经被共和党参议院领袖以及普通共和党人多次否决。
参议院多数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔(R-Ky)说:“共和党大会上很少或根本没有反对议案的情绪。)告诉记者。"我们的成员认为我们有义务听取这些论点。"
罗伊·布朗特参议员。)，共和党领导层的一名成员也拒绝了解雇的想法，称“从每个人被听到中受益最大的人是总统。”
“他还没有机会提出他的理由。他将有机会进入参议院，”布朗特详细阐述道。“我们不能让一个片面的过程突然结束。”
就连特朗普在国会山最坚定的盟友之一，参议员林赛·格雷厄姆(共和党人)也将审判驳回形容为“一个坏主意”
众议院弹劾管理人员在1月15日从众议院进入参议院时，将弹劾条款通过法律厅。
“我认为你没有投票权，”他告诉记者。“我个人认为这是个坏主意。我认为这不会发生。”
温和派共和党人，包括缅因州参议员苏珊·科林斯和犹他州参议员米特罗姆尼，也不支持未经审判就驳回这些文章。
所有参议员对白宫法律战略的反驳都是在周二共和党参议院每周午餐后进行的，白宫立法事务主任埃里克·尤兰德出席了午餐。他在会议前告诉记者，白宫“非常有信心”有机会“提出驳回动议”
在周三与记者的通话中，高级政府官员表示，他们预计总统弹劾审判将是有史以来速度最快的，仅持续几周，没有目击者。对安德鲁·约翰逊总统和比尔·克林顿总统的审判分别持续了近三个月和一个多月。
“我认为我们不太可能超过两周。我们认为这个案子对总统来说是压倒性的，参议院没有必要在这个问题上花那么多时间，”官员们说。“我们认为这次审判不需要证人。”
关于是否应该传唤证人作证的问题一直是共和党人和民主党人争论的焦点，这也是众议院议长南希·佩洛西(加州民主党人)在参议院领导人就审判条款进行谈判时拒绝发表文章近一个月的原因。随着麦康奈尔在僵局中获胜，参议院很可能会通过与克林顿案相似的审判规则，这些规则只允许在众议院弹劾管理人员和总统辩护团队提出论据后考虑证人。
高级官员向民主党人发出警告:“如果我们与证人或其他人继续进行更长的程序，总统也将有权有证人。”
事实上，参议院共和党人也向他们的民主党同事发出了类似的警告，如果他们成功地迫使投票传唤他们想要的证人，比如前国家安全顾问约翰·博尔顿和代理白宫幕僚长米克·马尔瓦尼，他们也会主动传唤自己的证人。这可能包括前副总统乔·拜登的儿子亨特·拜登。民主党只需要四名共和党人站在他们一边。
“双方都想传唤他们想听到的证人，”麦康奈尔说。“当我们谈到这个问题时，我无法想象只有我们的民主党同事想传唤的证人会被传唤。”
他拒绝透露这些人中是否会有亨特·拜登，但参议员兰德·保罗(R-Ky。)发誓前副总统的儿子将会在其中。
WHITE HOUSE PUSHES FOR IMPEACHMENT TRIAL DISMISSAL BUT REPUBLICANS WON'T GO ALONG
President Donald Trump's legal team is continuing to push for the Senate to outright dismiss the House impeachment articles levied against him and forgo a trial altogether that would likely result in an acquittal, despite top GOP senators' rejection of the idea.
"[Dismissal] demonstrates and allows someone to make a decision right at the threshold that this is so insubstantial we shouldn't spend more time on it," senior Trump administration officials told reporters on a conference call Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "It doesn't meet the standard, and we should just get rid of it. That would be an appropriate thing to do, in this case."
The sentiment by the president's legal team that there will at some point be an opportunity to dismiss the articles after the trial officially commences on Thursday has been shot down several times in recent days by GOP Senate leaders, as well as rank-and-file Republicans.
"There is little or no sentiment in the Republican conference for a motion to dismiss," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters Tuesday. "Our members feel we have an obligation to listen to the arguments."
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of the GOP leadership, also rejected the idea of a dismissal, saying the "person who would benefit the most from everybody being heard is the president."
"He hasn't had a chance to make his case. He'll have that chance in the Senate," Blunt elaborated. "We can't just have a one-sided process that suddenly ends."
Even one of Trump's staunchest allies on Capitol Hill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), characterized a trial dismissal as "a bad idea."
House impeachment managers carry the articles of impeachment through Statuary Hall as they pass from the House into the Senate on January 15.
"I don't think you have the votes for it," he told reporters. "I think it's personally a bad idea. I don't think it's going to happen."
Moderate Republicans, including Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah), also do not support dismissing the articles without a trial.
All of the senators' rebuttals to the White House legal strategy came after a weekly GOP Senate lunch on Tuesday, which White House Legislative Affairs Director Eric Ueland attended. He told reporters before the meeting that the White House was "very confident" it would have an opportunity for "a motion to dismiss."
In their call with reporters Wednesday, the senior administration officials said they expect the speediest presidential impeachment trial in history, lasting just a few weeks and with no witnesses. The trials of Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton lasted nearly three months and more than one month, respectively.
"I think it's extraordinarily unlikely that we'd be going beyond two weeks. We think that this case is overwhelming for the president, and the Senate is not going to have any need to be taking that amount of time on this," the officials said. "We don't think that there's going to be any need for witnesses in this trial."
The question over whether witnesses should be summoned to testify has been a contentious point of debate between Republicans and Democrats, and it was the reason House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) withheld the articles for nearly a month as Senate leaders negotiated terms for the trial. With McConnell emerging victorious over the stalemate, the Senate will most likely pass trial rules that mirror those in the Clinton trial, which allowed for the consideration of witnesses only after arguments were presented by House impeachment managers and the president's defense team.
The senior officials issued a warning for Democrats: "If we go on to a longer process with witnesses or something, the president will have a right to have witnesses as well."
Indeed, Senate Republicans have issued a similar cautionary message to their Democratic colleagues that, if they prove successful in forcing a vote to subpoena their desired witnesses, such as former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, they too will move to call their own witnesses. That could include Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden. Democrats would only need four Republicans to side with them.
"Both sides would want to call witnesses that they want to hear from," McConnell said. "When we get to that issue, I can't imagine that only the witnesses that our Democratic colleagues would want to call would be called."
He declined to say whether one of those people would be Hunter Biden, but Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has vowed that the former vice president's son would be among them.
