Sen. Chris Coons Tells Smerconish He Thinks Senate Will Delay Hearing from Impeachment Witnesses

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons predicted that the Senate will delay the debate on immediately hearing witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

Coons was speaking with CNN host Michael Smerconish on his eponymous Smerconish program Saturday.

“I will say this, I don’t expect that there will be a successful vote when we start Tuesday to begin the impeachment trial on witnesses, on documents. I think that Mitch McConnell has the 51 votes he needs to insist on having the case in principle presented by the House managers first, the president’s defenders second, and only then to turn to the fight over witnesses,” Coons said.

Smerconish also noted that Ken Starr has previously argued there will likely be witnesses in the impeachment trial, but had pointed out Republicans would likely try to call Hunter Biden in return.

“What we’re considering is whether or not President Trump blocked Congress inappropriately in their impeachment inquiry, whether he obstructed Congress, and whether he did or didn’t improperly order the withholding of military aid to Ukraine. John Bolton is clearly relevant to the latter question, to article one of the impeachment charges. Hunter Biden is clearly not relevant,” Coons said, going on to say Lev Parnas would be another potential witness “because he claims to have had direct conversations with President Trump about his intention to interfere in Ukraine.”

Watch above, via CNN.