Updated at 2:02 p.m. ET
President Trump's impeachment trial could end in acquittal with no witness testimony, following announcements from key Republican senators that they would not be supporting witnesses. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said they do not need to hear testimony.
Their decisions come as the trial resumes with arguments and debate over the issue of witnesses. Watch the proceedings live.
Alexander said late Thursday that he will not join Democrats in their push to subpoena witnesses. The news dashed House managers' hopes of beginning a new phase of the trial, potentially airing testimony from witnesses who could have proved politically damaging to Trump. Murkowski's announcement Friday made that outcome even more unlikely.
The looming acquittal for the president was long anticipated, but it still marks a striking setback for Democrats, who at times appeared hopeful that they would be able to persuade enough Republicans to join them in voting to call witnesses, thereby prolonging the trial if not the altering its outcome.
Murkowski made clear on Friday that she did not want an extended trial.
"Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate," Murkowski said in a statement. "I don't believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed."
Murkowski added that potentially putting presiding officer Chief Justice John Roberts at the center of a tiebreaker over witnesses was not worth it.
"We have already degraded this institution for partisan political benefit, and I will not enable those who wish to pull down another," she said.
Alexander argued that he had enough evidence that Trump acted inappropriately — but he does not think the president's actions are impeachable. "If you've got eight witnesses saying that you left the scene of an accident, you don't need nine," he told NPR on Friday.
The president faces two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to accusations that he held up military aid to Ukraine until the country announced investigations into potential political rival former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Former national security adviser John Bolton has been mentioned as a witness after reports describing portions of his forthcoming book in which he purportedly verifies those accusations.
Senators on Friday are holding four hours of debate equally divided between House managers prosecuting the case and Trump's defense lawyers.
Afterward, a vote will be held on a motion to consider evidence or witness testimony. The Democratic caucus needs four Republicans to defy their party in order to succeed, and Alexander's and Murkowski's decisions to vote with their party all but guaranteed that the witnesses will not be part of the trial.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on Thursday announced that she plans to vote for hearing witnesses, writing: "I believe hearing from certain witnesses would give each side the opportunity to more fully and fairly make their case, resolve any ambiguities, and provide additional clarity."
A spokeswoman for Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said on Twitter that Romney "wants to hear from Ambassador Bolton, and he will vote in favor of the motion today to consider witnesses."
With 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents who caucus with Democrats, there is the prospect of a 50-50 vote on whether to call witnesses. Such a vote would fail, and Roberts is seen as unlikely to insert himself into what is essentially a political process.
As the trial resumed Friday with closing arguments, House manager Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was the first to speak, and immediately read into the record a New York Times story from Friday that reported on a new revelation in Bolton's manuscript. The article reports Bolton says Trump told him in early May to call Ukraine's president to set up a meeting with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to discuss an investigation into the Bidens. Bolton says that among those in the Oval Office meeting with Trump and Bolton was White House counsel Pat Cipollone. Cipollone is now leading Trump's defense team.
"You will recall Mr. Cipollone suggesting that the House managers were concealing facts from this body. He said all the facts should come out," Schiff told senators. "Well, there is a new fact which indicates that Mr. Cipollone was among those who are in the loop. Yet another reason why we ought to hear from witnesses."
NPR has not reviewed the manuscript.
On Thursday, after two days of questions from senators, which included forays into foreign election interference and broad interpretations of executive power, both sides dug deep in their respective positions. Democrats argued that Trump solicited the help of a foreign country in order to tilt this year's presidential election in his favor and that he should therefore be removed from office. Yet Trump's defense team said the prosecution was a politically driven effort to reverse the result of the 2016 election.
"Now it's up to the Senate to decide what the facts are," Alan Dershowitz, one of the president's impeachment lawyers, told NPR's Steve Inskeep on Friday. "But my position was very clearly that if a president is charged with abuse of power or obstruction of Congress, that the charges should be dismissed. They are not within the constitutional criteria."
Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday night, attacked Democrats for charging him with high crimes and misdemeanors.
"Can you believe these people? I got impeached. They impeached Trump," said Trump. "They want to nullify your ballots, poison our democracy and overthrow the entire system of government."
Democrats, who have maintained throughout the trial that a proceeding without witnesses and evidence would not be a fair process, sought Thursday to undercut the president's likely imminent acquittal.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said a trial "without the evidence, without witnesses and documents would render the president's acquittal meaningless," adding Trump's impeachment trial will have a "giant asterisk next to it, because the trial was so rigged in his favor."
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