Jamie Raskin: ‘We Could Have Had 1000 Witnesses’ and Republicans Still Would’ve Made ‘Silly Arguments’

Lead House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin responded on Meet the Press Sunday to criticisms facing Democrats over how the Donald Trump impeachment trial came to an end without calling witnesses.

Chuck Todd asked about the initial call for witnesses after a stunning new CNN report confirmed by Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler about Trump’s call with Kevin McCarthy during the riots.

“Her story was known for weeks. Why did you not try to contact her until the last couple of days?” Todd asked.

Raskin said they reached out to her after her statement, and touted how they won the vote on witnesses before that ultimately fell through.

“We could have had 1,000 witnesses, but that could not have overcome the kinds of silly arguments that people like McConnell and Capito were hanging their hats on. They’re trying to have it both ways,” he said.

Todd asked if they would’ve gotten a couple more votes if the focus was on dereliction of duty instead of incitement to insurrection.

Raskin reiterated, “These Republicans who voted to acquit in the face of this mountain of unrefuted evidence were going to find some reason to do it. So if we had charged dereliction of duty, they would have said, ‘That’s not an impeachable offense. You’ve got to deal with that within the military system.'”

He said the problem from the beginning was that they “did not honestly confront the reality of what happened to America, which was Donald Trump incited a violent mob to attack the Congress of the United States.”

“We have no regrets at all,” Raskin added.

You can watch above, via NBC.