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Trump Brags About Withholding Evidence as Democratic Impeachment Managers Lay Out Case in the Senate

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As to the question of the Democrat witnesses, look, they want John Bolton, they want Mick Mulvaney, they want two advisers. They have not asked for everybody who was a material witness in this. But it does go to, I think, a really interesting problem the Democrats do have, because they're simultaneously claiming, "Look, this is an open-and-shut case. It was made in the House. We have enough documentary evidence, we have enough witness testimony to end this right now. It's clear he did it," and also, "We want more." And I think that, in some ways, those two arguments work against each other. Do you need more witnesses, or do you not? And what we're seeing happening now is Adam Schiff and the other impeachment managers doing their level best to say, "OK, we'll go with door number one. We have enough, and we're going to show video for the next three days making the case." But I think it is also true that they have said, and they have said all along, "If you don't give us Mick Mulvaney, if you don't give us John Bolton, we only know a part of the story. We know a small part of the story." And I think, in some sense, at the end of the day, it's an attempt to refute the Republican talking point, which is, none of these witnesses were in the room, it's all hearsay. They want to have people who were in the room where it happened. And to be denied that and then told, "You don't have any firsthand witnesses," feels like a trap to them.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Dahlia, we're about to have Tim Robbins on, the director and actor, and I wanted to go to the issue of the framing of the Senate, this whole issue that no longer can the cameras be in the Senate, but that the Republicans are determining the frame of what we are seeing. C-SPAN can't even do this, and they all have to take the Republicans' frame of this trial, which is only looking forward. You cannot generally see the senators. The significance of this? And, of course, you're a longtime Chief Justice Roberts watcher. You're a Supreme Court reporter. You know, here you have the chief justice who's presiding over the Senate trial.

DAHLIA LITHWICK: Just on the media question, I mean, you know better than anyone what it means to have media limitations on a consequential hearing like this. It's not just that the cameras have been removed from the room. It's that reporters cannot engage in walk-and-talks and do the kinds of things that they should be allowed to do in the halls of the Senate. I sit on the steering committee for the Reporters Committee of the Freedom of the Press, and it is really unconscionable, the lack of press access that we're having and that that's dressed up as a security problem.

On the issue of John Roberts, look, he's done exactly what you and I have talked about in the shows prior to this: He has tried as much as possible to fade back into the bushes, to be a potted plant. He had one brief moment on Tuesday night where he rebuked both sides for intemperate speech. But I think anyone who thought that John Roberts was going to leap into --

AMY GOODMAN: And brought the word "pettifogging" back.

DAHLIA LITHWICK: "Pettifogging" back in style, but also, really, I think, tried to do some both-sideism to take control of the optics. I don't think we're going to see a John Roberts who is eager to rush in and make rulings and be a tiebreaker. He really, I think, is waiting this out and hoping it goes away.

AMY GOODMAN: Dahlia Lithwick, we want to thank you for being with us, senior editor at Slate.com, where she's senior legal correspondent and Supreme Court reporter.

When we come back, President Trump moves to expand his travel ban to seven more countries. We'll speak with the Oscar-winning actor Tim Robbins about his new play on immigration. It's called The New Colossus. It's traveling the country. Stay with us.

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