Twenty-one years and a president of a different party make all the difference when it comes to setting the rules for an impeachment trial.
Arguments made by Republicans in favor of calling witnesses during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial are now touted by Democrats, while Republican senators push to limit any further testimony that could prolong President Trump’s Senate trial.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected Democratic leader Chuck Schumer’s request to subpoena four current and former Trump administration officials, including acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton. He said he did not need jurors like Mr. Schumer “brainstorming witness lists for the prosecution.”
But Mr. McConnell defended the calling of witnesses in 1999, noting that “it's certainly not unusual to have a witness in an impeachment trial.” He also defended the specific request by House impeachment managers to call three witnesses, saying that number was “pretty modest.”
Mr. Schumer has also changed his tune, though the scenarios have several key differences. The House voted on impeachment in 1998 following the completion of investigations by independent counsel Ken Starr, including grand jury testimony from all relevant witnesses that Republicans wanted to subpoena for a Senate trial. The 2019 impeachment of Mr. Trump happened after months of investigation by the House, though the White House discouraged key witnesses from testifying, and Democrats decided to follow through with impeachment based on the testimony they could obtain from witnesses who agreed to testify rather than fight to subpoena other individuals, like Mr. Bolton, in court.
Mr. Schumer was already a senator-elect when he voted against impeachment in the House in December 1998, making him a rare member to have participated in both chambers’ deliberations on the same presidential impeachment. As a House member he said it would be natural for the president to call witnesses to support his case: “the president will call witness after witness because he can and because to defend himself, he must.”
Later, during the Senate trial in January 1999, Mr. Schumer said that there was “no good case” for bringing witnesses and said Republicans were “more interested in political theater than in actually getting to the bottom of the facts.” Schumer explained his stance at a Capitol Hill press conference this week, saying that the witnesses in 1999 had already given grand jury testimony, and that the four witnesses Democrats have requested this time have not previously testified.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) was a House impeachment manager during Mr. Clinton’s Senate trial, and he encouraged the Senate to call as many witnesses as necessary so jurors would be left without any doubts about the facts of the case.
"We are alleging that the president turned the judicial system upside down for his political and legal gain, and you need witnesses to tell that story," Mr. Graham said in January 1999. Mr. Graham now says he is ready to vote on the articles of impeachment and that he doesn’t “really need to hear a lot of witnesses.”
Mr. McConnell also pushed for senators to hear some testimony during the Clinton impeachment in private, given its “seamy” nature and potential to be “embarrassing to the children of this country.” That idea was ultimately dropped following Republican and Democratic objections, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) calling it a “star chamber proceeding.”
In his letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, Mr. Trump denounced House Democrats’ “Star Chamber of partisan persecution.”
Write to Gabriel T. Rubin at gabriel.rubin@wsj.com
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