UPDATE: The U.S. Senate adjourned at 1:50 a.m. on Wednesday, more than 12 hours after its hearing began.
Republicans rejected 11 amendments proposed by Democrats to allow additional evidence and witnesses to be included in the trial documents before approving a final package of rules.
Opening arguments are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Wednesday.
Georgia Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler voted with the Republican majority every time. The only member of their party to vote with Democrats was Maine Sen. Susan Collins who did so once in a failed attempt to allow each side more time to respond to any motions that may be filed.
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The first day of the Senate impeachment trial has consisted mostly of Democratic-led attempts to seek new evidence and records and Republicans using their majority to quash them.
Five times now, Republicans used their majority vote to kill Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s amendments. The first would have required the Senate to subpoena White House documents; the second sought out records from the Department of State; the third referenced records held by the Office of Management and Budget.
The fourth and five dealt with subpoenaing acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and records and documents from the Department of Defense.
Each time the Senate voted 53-47 to kill the amendments with no members crossing party lines. Georgia’s Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue sided with the Republican majority.
Schumer, of New York, proposed a six amendment to subpoena testimony from White House aide Robert Blair and Michael Duffey, associate director of national security programs at the OMB, at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
It is uncertain if the Senate will vote tonight on a final rule package that will govern how the trial will proceed or wait until Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has proposed allowing each side 24 hours for opening arguments spread over three days each. That is a change from the draft his office released Tuesday night that would have given each side only two days.
McConnell’s office said Wednesday that he agreed to the extra day after having lunch with GOP colleagues. He also made another change to allow the House Democrats’ evidence to be accepted into the record without requiring senators to take a vote.
Although Senate Republicans voted against seeking witnesses or new records at this juncture of the trial, that could still happen later in the process. Opening arguments are set to begin Thursday and continue for several days.
That will be followed by 16 hours of questions and answers. Then, each side will have two hours each to argue their case.
Once that happens, the Senate can then decide whether they want to call witnesses or proceed directly to deliberations on whether the president should be removed from office.
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