As fresh allegations from former national security adviser John Bolton are increasing pressure on senators to allow witness testimony during the Senate impeachment trial, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey reportedly has discussed a potential agreement on calling a pair of witnesses.
According to The Washington Post, the Pennsylvania Republican expressed an openness to a witness agreement in which Democrats could call one witness and Republicans could call their own witness.
A spokesman for Toomey declined to comment on the report.
In an interview last week, Toomey had said he doesn’t see an “automatic presumption” that there must be witnesses in the impeachment trial, arguing that hearing from those individuals should be used to resolve any key disputed facts.
“The criteria is not does the witness have something interesting to say,” Toomey said Friday. “The criteria is are they likely to be able to shed definitive light on a disputed issue that is so central to this case that the resolution of it could change my final conclusion?”
That comment came before a New York Times report that Bolton asserts in a yet-to-be-released book that the president told him nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine would be withheld until the country assisted with investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and other Democrats.
Two Republican senators, Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, said Monday that Bolton’s claims bolster the case for calling trial witnesses.
Washington correspondent Laura Olson can be reached at 202-780-9540 or lolson@mcall.com.
