On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate will vote on whether or not to convict President Donald Trump in the impeachment trial. Last week, Senate Republicans voted against calling new witnesses in the trial, saying they had enough information to rule on the merits of the House Democrats’ charges. Democrats had fought for more witnesses, angling to prolong the trial after the House of Representatives rushed the initial vote on articles of impeachment. The vote against new witnesses marked a victory for Trump, who wants to put the process behind him. In fact, the impeachment might bolster Trump’s re-election.
From the beginning, it was extremely unlikely the Senate would vote to remove Trump from office. Yet Democrats made five monumental errors that essentially guaranteed that outcome.
House Democrats made a tremendous tactical error in seizing on Trump’s call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for the impeachment push. Following the years-long investigation into supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia — and the Mueller report’s finding that there was no outright collusion — Democrats seized on a similar argument for impeachment: Trump cheated in the 2020 election by encouraging a foreign power (Ukraine) to investigate a potential rival (Joe Biden), holding up Congressionally-allocated military funding from Ukraine in a quid pro quo.