Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) says he's considering forcing votes on motions that would allow President Trump to call his own witnesses forward during an impeachment trial, Politico is reporting. The Kentucky senator has recently called for Hunter Biden and Eric Ciaramella specifically to testify in the impeachment inquiry.
(Via Politico)
Though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged Republicans on Wednesday to limit divisive votes to bring in witnesses, senators believe they will be able to offer their own amendments on the chamber’s impeachment resolution. Some Republicans also want the Senate to call the whistleblower.
“I believe very strongly the president should be able to call his own witnesses,” Paul told reporters on Thursday. “The rules that are put forward will be amendable, so yes I will consider strongly that the president should get his full due process, which to me means bringing in his own witnesses.”
"If you can't call Hunter Biden and you can't call the whistleblower, that's sort of a sham. That's not really even a trial," Sen. Paul recently said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Wednesday, during an appearance on WMAL's "Mornings on the Mall," Sen. Paul told co-host Vince Coglianese that "Eric Ciaramella needs to be pulled in for testimony."
"But I think he is a person of interest in the sense that he was at the Ukraine desk when Joe Biden was there, when Hunter Biden was working for the Urkainian Oligarch, so simply for that alone I think he is a material witness and needs to be brought in," Sen. Paul said.
Ciaramella is a former Ukraine director on the National Security Council.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch is the next witness scheduled to testify in an impeachment hearing on Friday.