US Senate Democrats plan debt-limit vote, Biden hints filibuster could go

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats are set to try again on Wednesday to extend the US government's borrowing authority to head off a catastrophic default, after President Joe Biden suggested they could change the chamber's rules to bypass a Republican roadblock.

Republicans for months have refused to help raise the self-imposed $28.4 trillion borrowing cap, instead trying to force Democrats to use a different parliamentary maneuver to do so in hopes of scoring political points with voters.

With less than two weeks to go before the Treasury Department expects to run out of ways to meet the government's expenses, Democrats are looking at all their options.

Biden said on Tuesday that it was "real possibility" that Democrats might use their current razor-thin majority to drop the Senate's filibuster rule, which requires 60 of the chamber's 100 members to agree to pass most legislation.

Biden, himself a former Senator, had previously opposed changes to the filibuster, which is meant to help maintain government stability through election cycles.

If Democrats follow through, they could easily suspend the debt ceiling before the deadline of about Oct. 18. That would head off the risk of a crippling default and allow them to focus on passing two mammoth spending bills that make up the bulk of Biden's domestic agenda.

In an effort to underline the severe economic risks of a default, Biden will meet on Wednesday with a group including CEOs of major corporations including JPMorgan Chase & Co , Intel Corp and Nasdaq Inc.

Many Democrats have long argued that the Senate should dump the filibuster entirely, saying it prevents progress on climate change, voting rights and other priorities. The chamber already allows federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, to win approval on a straight majority vote.

Centrist Democratic senators including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have said repeatedly they are not willing to dump the filibuster, which would leave the party short of the votes they need to change the rule, however. They could not be reached for comment on whether Biden's words would change their minds.

Democratic Senators John Hickenlooper and Ron Wyden on Tuesday said they were open to dropping the filibuster requirement for the debt-limit vote. Manchin declined to comment when asked about it prior to Biden's remarks.

The Senate was due to hold a Wednesday afternoon procedural vote that would allow them to begin debating a bill that would suspend the debt limit until December 2022, after the elections that will determine control of Congress for the next two years.

That passed the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives last week but Republicans have stalled it in the Senate with the filibuster.

Without a quick resolution, some government services might be suspended, such as delivering Social Security benefit checks to the elderly.

Even a close call would likely be damaging. A 2011 debt ceiling dispute, which Congress resolved two days before the borrowing limit was due to have been reached, caused stocks to tumble and prompted a first-ever credit downgrade for US debt.

The Bipartisan Policy Center on Wednesday issued forecasts on when some federal payments could be postponed as a result of the standoff. Among them: Unemployment insurance payments due Oct. 20 could be delayed five days, federal salaries for civilian employees due Oct. 29 could be pushed back to Nov. 9 and Medicare payments to doctors could be delayed from Nov. 1 to Nov. 19.

Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday it expects Washington will raise the debt limit.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner said Congress was already risking US creditworthiness, however.

"We're in the danger zone right now," he told reporters on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan and Susan Cornwell, additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Steve Holland; Editing by Scott Malone, Sonya Hepinstall and Nick Zieminski)

-reuters-

Trump celebrates acquittal

President Donald Trump holds up a newspaper with the headline that reads "ACQUITTED" at the 68th annual National Prayer Breakfast, at the Washington Hilton, Thursday. The US Senate voted 53-47 for his acquittal on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress Wednesday.

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Trump’s acquittal

Protesters sit on the floor of the Capitol Rotunda and shout shortly before being arrested, to demonstrate against US President Donald J. Trump possibly being acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, USA on Wednesday. The Senate acquitted Trump on the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress with 53-47 votes.

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US Senate rejects witnesses in Trump impeachment trial, clearing way for acquittal

WASHINGTON - The US Senate voted on Friday against calling witnesses and collecting new evidence in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, clearing the way for Trump's almost certain acquittal next week.

By a vote of 51-49, the Republican-controlled Senate stopped Democrats' drive to hear testimony from witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton, who is thought to have first-hand knowledge of Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Those actions prompted the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives to formally charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December, making Trump only the third president in US history to be impeached.

He denies wrongdoing and has accused Democrats of an "attempted coup."

The Senate approved on a party-line vote a timeline for the rest of the trial that calls for a final vote on the impeachment charges at 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT) on Wednesday.

Closing arguments will begin at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) on Monday, with 4 hours split between the prosecution and defense. That will give the 4 Democratic senators who are running to be their party's presidential nominee time to get to Iowa for that night's first nominating contest.

In between the closing arguments and final vote, senators will have an opportunity to give speeches on the Senate floor, but the trial will not formally be in session. Trump will deliver his State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

The Senate is almost certain to acquit Trump of the charges, as a two-thirds Senate majority is required to remove Trump and none of the chamber's 53 Republicans have indicated they would vote to convict.

Trump is seeking re-election in the Nov. 3 vote. Biden is a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to face him.

In Friday's vote on witnesses, only 2 Republicans - Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, and Susan Collins, who faces a tough re-election in November in her home state of Maine - broke with their party and voted with Democrats.

"America will remember this day, unfortunately, where the Senate did not live up to its responsibilities, where the Senate turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters.

After the first vote on calling witnesses, Schumer offered more amendments seeking to call witnesses and obtain more evidence, but the Senate rejected them all. Romney and Collins were again the only Republicans to support calling Bolton as a witness.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said the trial should end as soon as possible. 

"The cake is baked and we just need to move as soon as we can to get it behind us," he told reporters.

NEW DETAILS

Friday's vote on witnesses came hours after the New York Times reported new details from an unpublished book manuscript written by Bolton in which the former aide said Trump directed him in May to help in a pressure campaign to get Ukraine to pursue investigations that would benefit Trump politically.

Bolton wrote that Trump told him to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to ensure Zelenskiy would meet with Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a key player in the campaign, the Times reported.

Robert Costello, a lawyer for Giuliani, called the Times report "categorically untrue." Bolton's lawyer and spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

The Times previously reported that Bolton - contradicting Trump's version of events - wrote the president told him he wanted to freeze $391 million in security aid to Ukraine until Kiev pursued investigations of Democrats, including Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Democrats had said the news illustrated the need for the Senate to put Bolton under oath.

But Republicans said they had heard enough. Some said they did not think that Trump did anything wrong, while Senators Lamar Alexander and Rob Portman said his actions were wrong but did not amount to impeachable conduct. Sen. Marco Rubio said impeachment would be too divisive for the country, even if a president engaged in clearly impeachable activity.

Lisa Murkowski, a Republican moderate who Democrats had hoped would vote with them to extend the trial, said the case against Trump was rushed and flawed. She told reporters she was "angry at all sides" and the prospect of a tie vote on witnesses weighed heavily on her decision.

After the Senate adjourned on Friday, she said she knew how she would vote on the charges but she would not reveal it yet.

"Will I share it with you tonight? I’ve had so much drama today, I’m just going to chill. How’s that? Was that fair?" Murkowski told reporters.

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Historic Trump impeachment trial begins in US Senate

The historic impeachment trial of Donald Trump opened Thursday in the US Senate, as lawmakers took a solemn oath to be "impartial" in deciding whether to force the 45th US president from office.

In a hushed chamber, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, clad in a traditional black robe, raised his right hand as he was sworn in to preside over the trial. He then administered the oath to senators in turn, to convene the third court of impeachment in American history.

Roberts asked if they swore to deliver "impartial justice" according to the US Constitution, and 99 lawmakers -- one was absent -- responded in unison: "I do."

Earlier in the day in a deeply symbolic moment, the two articles of impeachment -- charging Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- were read out on the Senate floor.

The Senate Sergeant of Arms Michael Stenger issued a warning as proceedings got underway.

"Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye," Stenger said, commanding senators to "keep silent, on pain of imprisonment."

Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who will serve as lead prosecutor for the trial, read the charges accusing Trump of "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Trump has ridiculed the impeachment process for months, and he responded to the opening of the trial by once more branding it a "hoax."

"I think it should go very quickly," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

"It's totally partisan," Trump said. "I've got to go through a hoax, a phony hoax put out by the Democrats so they can try and win an election."

The Democratic-controlled House, in an overwhelmingly partisan vote, impeached Trump on December 18 over his dealings with Ukraine and subsequent efforts to obstruct the investigation into the affair.

Impeachment rules require a two-thirds Senate majority to convict and remove a president, and Trump's acquittal is widely expected in the Republican-dominated Senate.

Justice Roberts, 64, was appointed to the nation's top court by president George W. Bush, and will preside over the duration of the trial, which is expected to last two weeks.

After the senators' swearing in, the Senate adjourned until 1:00 pm (1800 GMT) on Tuesday, when the prosecution begins laying out its case against the president.

One senator -- Republican James Inhofe -- was absent due to a family medical emergency but said he would be sworn in "with no delay" on Tuesday, when Trump's impeachment trial begins in earnest.

'Senate's time is at hand'
Trump is accused of abuse of power for withholding military aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting for the country's president in exchange for an investigation into his potential presidential election rival Democrat Joe Biden.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office concluded in a report released Thursday that the White House violated federal law by putting a hold on the congressionally-approved funds for Ukraine.

"Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law," according to the GAO, a congressional watchdog.

The second article of impeachment relates to Trump's refusal to provide witnesses and documents to House impeachment investigators in defiance of congressional subpoenas.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been extremely critical of Trump's impeachment by the House and Democrats have accused him of planning to oversee a "sham" trial in the Senate.

McConnell has said he would coordinate the defense of Trump in the Senate with the White House.

"It was a transparently partisan performance from beginning to end," McConnell said of the House impeachment. "But it's not what this process will be going forward.

"The House's hour is over," the Republican senator from Kentucky said. "The Senate's time is at hand."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump had given the House no option.

"It is a sad day for America," Pelosi told reporters. "We were given no choice."

Trump's actions undermined national security, were a violation of his oath of office and "jeopardized the integrity of our elections," she said.

For weeks Pelosi held back on delivering the articles to the Senate as she pressured McConnell to agree to subpoena the witnesses and documents that the White House blocked from the probe.

McConnell has refused to commit, saying the issue will only be decided after the trial's opening arguments and questioning.

A Trump administration official told reporters they expect the trial to last no longer than two weeks, suggesting McConnell could use his 53-47 Republican majority to stifle calls for witnesses and quickly take the charges to a vote.

Aside from Schiff the prosecution team will include Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler; House Democratic Caucus chair Hakeem Jeffries; Zoe Lofgren, a veteran of two previous impeachment investigations; and three others.

cl-mlm/ec

Agence France-Presse

Democrats to send Trump impeachment articles to Senate next week

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she intends to transmit articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate next week, moving to end a taut standoff with Republicans over terms of the president's trial.

The top Democrat's announcement virtually assures that a historic trial of Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress begins this month, as anticipated.

But she declined to provide a specific timeline for the next steps and did not announce which House Democrats she will ask to spearhead the case in the Senate, saying lawmakers should be ready to vote to appoint the managers some time next week.

"I have asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to be prepared to bring to the floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate," Pelosi said in a letter to her Democratic caucus.

"I will be consulting with you at our Tuesday House Democratic Caucus meeting on how we proceed further," she added.

Pelosi has withheld the articles since Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 18 over allegations that he improperly pressured Ukraine to investigate his potential 2020 election rival Joe Biden, and that he obstructed the subsequent congressional probe.

The top Democrat in Congress had hoped Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, of Trump's Republican Party, would provide assurances of what she described as a "fair" trial in which Democrats can subpoena witnesses and documents.

But McConnell who, like Pelosi, is seen as a wily political strategist, refused to budge, announcing this week he had sufficient Republican votes to conduct a trial without acceding to Democratic demands.

"There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure," he said on Wednesday.

For weeks Pelosi had worn a poker face, leaving Democrats and Republicans alike guessing what and when her next move would be.

On Thursday she revealed only a sliver, saying she could "soon" send the articles to McConnell.

Democrats argue that her delay allowed dramatic new information to emerge before the trial, including Trump's former national security advisor John Bolton announcing on Monday that he was prepared to testify before the Senate if subpoenaed.

But as Democrats mulled what benefits, if any, there were to further postponing the trial, Pelosi came under increasing pressure to act.

McConnell has said he wants to set initial trial parameters first, then address possible witnesses once the procedure has begun. Pelosi wanted such assurances up front.

"Clearly, Leader McConnell does not want to present witnesses and documents to senators and the American people so they can make an independent judgment about the president's actions," Pelosi said in her letter.

'Impartial justice'

Democrats want to hear from four current or former administration officials, including Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who have direct knowledge of Trump's Ukraine dealings.

Getting McConnell to allow witnesses later in the trial would require support from at least four Republicans.

"In an impeachment trial, every senator takes an oath to 'do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws,'" Pelosi said. "Every Senator now faces a choice: to be loyal to the president or the Constitution."

Some Republicans saw Pelosi's announcement as a sign she had backed down in the staring contest with McConnell.

"There is no way to spin it," added conservative congressman Mark Meadows. "Speaker Pelosi and her Democrat Caucus spent weeks playing games with what is effectively their attempt at overturning an American election."

The Senate is expected to start its trial this month before the political temperature quickly rises as the nation turns to the 2020 presidential race.

The first vote of the Democratic nomination process, in Iowa, is just weeks away, on February 3.

Five of the candidates -- Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Michael Bennet, are US senators and their constitutional duty requires them to be seated in the chamber serving as jurors during the impeachment trial.

That will curtail their campaigning in the run-up to Iowa, handing an advantage to former vice president Joe Biden, who is the Democratic frontrunner, and others in the race.

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Saudi Arabia slams US Senate vote as 'interference'

RIYADH - Saudi Arabia on Sunday rejected as "interference" a US Senate resolution to end American military support for a Riyadh-led war in Yemen, and another holding its crown prince responsible for the murder of critic Jamal Khashoggi.

"The kingdom condemns the latest position of the US Senate that was based on unsubstantiated allegations and rejects the blatant interference in its internal affairs," the foreign ministry said in a statement released by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Though largely symbolic, the US Senate vote on Thursday dealt a fresh warning to President Donald Trump, who has staunchly backed the Saudi regime despite global uproar over the Yemen conflict and the murder of journalist Khashoggi.

On the Yemen measure, which more broadly attacks the president's prerogative to launch military action, 49 Democrats or their allies voted in favour, along with seven Republicans, while another three Republicans abstained.

The Senate also approved a resolution condemning Khashoggi's murder and calling Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, "responsible" for it.

The Saudi ministry warned that the kingdom would not tolerate any "disrespect" of its rulers.

"This position by the US Senate sends the wrong messages to all those who want to cause a rift in Saudi-US relationship," the ministry said.

"The kingdom hopes that it is not drawn into domestic political debates in the US to avoid any... significant negative impact on this important strategic relationship."

The Senate resolution acknowledged the US-Saudi ties were "important" but called on Riyadh to "moderate its increasingly erratic foreign policy".

The resolutions cannot be debated in the House of Representatives before January, and would likely be vetoed in any case by Trump.

But the Senate votes send a strong message to the White House over anger on both sides of the aisle towards Riyadh.

Khashoggi, a Saudi contributor to the Washington Post, was killed on October 2 shortly after entering the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul in what Riyadh called a "rogue" operation.

The murder has tarnished Riyadh's international reputation, and Western countries including the United States, France and Canada have placed sanctions on nearly 20 Saudi nationals.

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Sunday called for a "credible" probe into the murder.

Anger at the human cost of the war in Yemen has also prompted a harder line in Congress about the US military's role in backing Saudi-led coalition strikes against Huthi rebels.

Since the coalition launched its campaign in 2015, the conflict has killed nearly 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization. But some rights groups believe the toll to be far higher.

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