Republican-led US Senate rejects all 11 amendments by Democrats in impeachment trial

With only a first few hours into the impeachment trial in US Senate against Donald Trump, it turned into a partisan war. The Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had introduced 11 amendments to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's proposed rules. However, even though discussions and debates took place for each proposal, they were rejected on party lines with 53-47 votes. Not only just the amendments but when the house voted to adopt the proposed rules by McConnell, they were swiftly adopted with the exact same votes before adjourning for the day.

Initial hopes of Democrats

Democrats had initially hoped for a trial based on witnesses but McConnell had dismissed the resolution. House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi has previously accused Republican Senator McConnell of 'showing true colours' and not allowing new evidence and witnesses in the trial. McConnell had already claimed that Republicans have enough votes in order to block the demands of witnesses and evidence by Democrats, which they did as the trial officially began. 

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Furthermore, Pelosi had also indicated towards the emergence of new emails which back the charges against Trump and willingness of former national security adviser John Bolton to participate in the trial if subpoenaed. All hopes by Pelosi were put to rest as Senate not only killed the proposal which would have issued a subpoena to Bolton, but also the amendment issuing a subpoena for Chief Justice John Roberts. According to international reports, the rejection of all 11 amendments introduced by Schumer took 13 hours of debate in the Republican-led Senate. 

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This also puts an end to the first day of the impeachment trial against Trump who has been accused by Democrats of abusing his constitutional powers by asking his Ukrainian counterpart to start an investigation against political rival Joe Biden and withholding military assistance in return. The 45th US President has repeatedly said that 'crazy Nancy Pelosi' and 'Do Nothing Democrats' have planned the entire impeachment and also claims to have done nothing wrong. Furthermore, in the first formal response, even Trump's legal team has called the impeachment articles submitted by Democrats as 'constitutionally invalid'.  

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