Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Trump and allies say Biden pays rent for ‘illegals’ in Michigan. Not true.

Tensions grow between Trump and Lake in Arizona race for Senate 

Trump and DeSantis meet privately in Florida 

The Rangers swept the Capitals, and it’s time for the new core to take charge

Middle East conflict live updates: Gaza on the agenda as Blinken, top diplomats gather in Saudi Arabia

Capitals get pushed aside by Presidents’ Trophy-winning Rangers

The Rick Steves guide to life

The sad, stale state of in-flight vegetarian meals

How to train for a marathon on vacation

Soldiers reunite with their pets from overseas: ‘It meant everything to me’

Chiropractor works on giraffe, is nuzzled: ‘Giraffes are just giant dogs?’

An SUV was in flames on the highway. Strangers saved the driver.  

An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India

As U.S. rushes to send military aid, Ukrainians applaud lobbying effort

Meta’s oversight body prepares to lay off workers

Lawsuits test Tesla claim that drivers are solely responsible for crashes   

How an inclusive gym brand became a battlefield over LGBTQ+ rights

Where seas are rising at alarming speed 

The new face of flooding

Is student loan debt an emergency? Take our quiz.

Eighty percent of Ukraine-Israel bill will be spent in U.S. or by U.S. military

Facts in the Trump courtroom v. ‘facts’ in the court of public opinion

Humans might need to re-engineer the climate

The Fed’s fight against inflation needs to lose the dot plot

Miss Manners: I think kindergarten graduations are ‘ridiculous’

Carolyn Hax: Is checking his phone the best way to prove he isn’t lying anymore?

Ask Amy: Boyfriend’s CPA dad did my taxes wrong for years

 Donald Trump Speaks During A Campaign Rally In Green Bay Wisconsin

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

The Senate voted to bar new evidence in the impeachment trial Friday, paving the way for President Trump’s acquittal even as several top Republicans acknowledged that his actions toward Ukraine were not appropriate.

Eleven days into the trial, the highly anticipated vote, which was decided 51 to 49, revealed the partisan divisions in the chamber over whether to subpoena witnesses and documents, a step Democrats argued was crucial to weighing whether Trump abused his power in pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations of his political rivals. Among Republicans, only Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Mitt Romney (Utah) supported the resolution.

In declining to add to the case presented by House Democrats, the Senate delivered a victory for the White House that all but guaranteed that Trump will remain in office. With a final vote on the articles of impeachment set for Wednesday at 4 p.m., Democrats argued that Trump’s expected acquittal will be illegitimate, an acknowledgment of their looming defeat.

“If [a] judge or president believes that it is to his or her advantage that there shall be a trial with no witnesses, they will cite the case of Donald Trump,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the House impeachment managers. “They will make the argument that you can adjudicate the guilt or innocence of the party without hearing from a single witness, without reviewing a single document. . . . I would submit that will be a very dangerous and long-lasting precedent that we will all have to live with.”

[The latest on President Trump’s impeachment trial]

Soon the questions surrounding Trump’s actions toward Ukraine will move from the Senate floor to the campaign trail, where voters instead of lawmakers will weigh the evidence in the heat of the 2020 presidential election.

House Democrats have promised to continue investigating Trump, and new, potentially damaging information could emerge as it has at times during the trial from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-discussed-interests-of-a-former-ukrainian-client-during-summer-meeting-with-top-zelensky-aide/2020/01/31/669a0fa0-41ef-11ea-abff-5ab1ba98b405_story.html?itid=hp_rhp-bignews4_rudyclient-23pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans">an indicted former associate</a> of Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/boltons-lawyer-contends-his-book-does-not-contain-classified-material-and-asks-white-house-for-expedited-review-so-he-can-testify-if-called/2020/01/29/89e4a56e-42e5-11ea-aa6a-083d01b3ed18_story.html">forthcoming book by John Bolton</a>, the former national security adviser.

But on Friday, Senate Republicans said they had finished weighing the matter — united in their decision to move on, even if members <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republicans-agree-it-was-no-perfect-call--but-will-vote-to-acquit-trump-anyway/2020/01/31/7ec659a0-445e-11ea-aa6a-083d01b3ed18_story.html?itid=hp_rhp-bignews4_debrief-725pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans">offered varying and at times conflicting reasons</a> for their impending votes to acquit.

Trump is accused of withholding military aid and an Oval Office meeting to push Ukraine’s leaders into announcing probes of Democrats, including former vice president Joe Biden, now a presidential candidate, and his son Hunter. The House impeached Trump in December on two counts — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the result of the trial “one of the worst tragedies that the Senate has ever overcome.”

“Americans will know that this trial was not a real trial. It had no witnesses, no documents,” Schumer told reporters after the vote. “It is a tragedy on a very large scale.”

As the Senate concluded its business for the weekend, Trump accused Democrats of “scamming America.”

“The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats keep chanting ‘fairness’, when they put on the most unfair Witch Hunt in the history of the U.S. Congress,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1223351951963967488">tweeted</a>.

The Senate approved a resolution setting up closing arguments Monday. Senators will have an opportunity to give speeches Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday about how they plan to vote.

Postponing the final stage of the trial until next week will allow senators to have a full weekend and was a relief for many who have complained about long hours and uncomfortable conditions in the Senate chamber.

But extending the timetable into next week also means the trial will collide with two other major events on the political calendar — the Iowa caucuses on Monday, in which four Democratic senators are competing, and Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called Trump on Friday evening to brief him on the updated timetable, and the president signed off on it, according to an official familiar with the conversation.

Trump left for Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, on Friday afternoon without taking questions from reporters.

[Endangered Republicans go all-in on Trump]

The impeachment managers’ effort to persuade Republicans to support calling witnesses was confirmed as a failure earlier in the day when pivotal swing vote Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she would oppose the motion.

In a sharply worded statement, Murkowski decried the impeachment process that started last fall in the House, while declining to weigh in on Trump’s actions.

“Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate,” Murkowski said. “I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”

Murkowski could have provided the third vote for witnesses, which would have resulted in a 50-50 outcome. Democrats were pushing for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who is presiding over the trial, to weigh in at that point and permit witnesses or other evidence rather than let the motion fail on the tied vote. But he said Friday that he would not intervene.

“I think it would be inappropriate for me, an unelected official from a different branch of government, to assert the power to change that result so that the motion would succeed,” he told senators.

While Murkowski said her decision was based on her distaste for the process, other Republicans acknowledged to varying degrees that the president was culpable — a shift in position for some that distanced them from the White House and served as an attempt to inoculate themselves if new incriminating details emerge.

Among the Republicans who argued Trump’s behavior was wrong or problematic but not impeachable were Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rob Portman (Ohio), Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.).

“Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office,” Rubio <a href="https://medium.com/@SenatorMarcoRubio/my-statement-on-the-presidents-impeachment-trial-9669e82ccb43">wrote Friday in a Medium post</a>.

“I believe that some of the president’s actions in this case . . . were wrong and inappropriate,” Portman said Friday in a statement. “But I do not believe that the president’s actions rise to the level of removing a duly-elected president from office.”

Alexander told The Washington Post on Friday, after announcing the previous night that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-alexander-calls-trumps-actions-inappropriate-but-rejects-witnesses-in-impeachment-trial/2020/01/30/a712383c-43b6-11ea-abff-5ab1ba98b405_story.html">he would not support calling witnesses</a>, that “there’s a difference between inappropriate conduct, which that clearly is, and treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors. There’s a big gap between this conduct and impeachable conduct.”

Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said he had hoped Alexander would have a “Howard Baker moment,” referring to the Tennessee Republican senator who played a key role in ending Richard M. Nixon’s presidency during Watergate and for whom Alexander was a protege.

“But it appears he will not,” Durbin said.

Republicans staked out their positions as new revelations from Bolton’s unpublished manuscript seemed to undercut key elements of Trump’s defense.

The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/us/politics/trump-bolton-ukraine.html?action=click&amp;module=Top%20Stories&amp;pgtype=Homepage">New York Times reported</a> Friday that Bolton writes in his forthcoming book that Trump told him in early May to call newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and ask him to meet with Giuliani, who was pushing for investigations into the Bidens and a widely contested theory that Ukraine worked with Democrats to undermine Trump during the 2016 election.

The directive to Bolton was reportedly given during a meeting that included Giuliani, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who has led Trump’s defense on the Senate floor. If true, it would represent the earliest reported example of Trump’s direct involvement in the pressure campaign against Ukraine.

Trump denied the report in a statement, saying the meeting “never happened.”

But Schiff seized on it in making his argument for witnesses.

“The facts will come out,” he said. “They will continue to come out. And the question before you today is whether they will come out in time for you to make a complete and informed judgment as to the guilt or innocence of the president.”

Also citing Bolton’s manuscript, the Times reported Sunday that in a conversation with Bolton in August, Trump directly tied his hold on $391 million of military aid to investigations into Democrats.

New revelations have also come from Lev Parnas, the ex-Giuliani associate now facing campaign finance charges, who submitted a letter to McConnell on Friday offering to testify about his participation in an effort to oust former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and gather damaging information about Joe and Hunter Biden.

The letter, written by Parnas’s lawyers, stated that the efforts involved a large group of top Republican officials and operatives, including Vice President Pence, then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William P. Barr, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

Parnas had disclosed much of the information included in the letter in recent media interviews. His claims have been disputed by various Republican leaders, including Pence and Barr.

Trump’s former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, who said earlier in the week that he believed Bolton, called the Senate trial “half a trial” if no witnesses are called.

“In my view, they kind of leave themselves open to a lot of criticism,” Kelly said in an interview with N.J. Advance Media. “It’s a job only half done. You open yourself up forever as a Senate that shirks its responsibilities.”

As Friday night drew to a close, it appeared Trump would deliver his State of the Union address before his expected acquittal, a small messaging coup for Democrats that was played down by the White House.

“The president is gratified that finally, at long last, after multiple delays, the Senate will set a schedule for his acquittal next week,” said White House director of legislative affairs Eric Ueland. “We do not believe the schedule interferes with his ability to deliver a strong and confident State of the Union message next week in the House of Representatives to the country.”

Meanwhile, the four senators running for president eagerly recast their schedules to take advantage of the free weekend.

“Are you going to Iowa?” a reporter shouted to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), one of the candidates, at the Capitol on Friday night.

<email>elise.viebeck@washpost.com</email>

<email>mike.debonis@washpost.com</email>

<email>seungmin.kim@washpost.com</email>

Colby Itkowitz, Paul Kane, Rosalind S. Helderman, John Wagner and Michael Brice-Saddler contributed to this report.

Claremont McKenna College, BS in government

Elise Viebeck is a political enterprise and investigations reporter. She joined The Washington Post in 2015.

Elise Viebeck

Georgetown University, AB in Russian, 2004

Mike DeBonis covered Congress for The Washington Post from 2015 to 2022. He previously covered D.C. politics and government from 2007 to 2015.

Mike DeBonis

University of Iowa, BS in Journalism and Political Science 

American University, MA in Journalism

Seung Min Kim is a White House reporter for The Washington Post, covering the Biden administration and its relationship with Capitol Hill. Before joining The Post in 2018, she spent more than eight years at Politico, primarily covering the Senate and immigration policy.

Seung Min Kim

The Washington Post

Impeachment proceedings of President Trump on Capitol Hill

staff

Biden administration

The Fix

The 202s

Polling

Democracy in America

Politics

iptc-media/politics/government/congress

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary/prosecution

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary/court/trial_(court)/defendant

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary/court/judge

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary/court/trial_(court)

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary

iptc-media/politics/political_process

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary/court

iptc-media/politics/government/heads_of_state

iptc-media/politics/government/impeachment

iptc-media/politics/government

iptc-media/politics

iptc-media/politics/election

client-blocklists/Client List: Morgan Stanley KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Becton Dickinson KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/CLIENT LIST: Nomura KWs 2021 - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Boeing KWs 2021- INCLUDE ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Exxon Mobil  - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Microsoft KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/GEICO KWs - INCLUDES ANY_4.26.21

client-blocklists/Client List: T. Rowe Price KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/T. Rowe Price KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/HBO KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Ford/Lincoln KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/ExxonMobil 03312021 KWs - INCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Bank of America KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/WaPo: Combined Disaster Keyword List - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Navy Federal Credit Union NFCU KWs 2 - EXCLUDES ALL - 12.23.20

advertising/B2_Campaigns and Campaign Finance_legacyaux_l7e

advertising/B2_Congressional Elections_legacyaux_r48

client-blocklists/Blockist: Capitol Building Mob

client-blocklists/Client List: Eli Lily KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_Culture and Tradition_legacyaux_kfx

advertising/B2_Embassy, Ambassador, & Diplomat Content_legacyaux_1ho

client-blocklists/Client List: Purina KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_Government & Policy_legacyaux_mza

advertising/B2_Health and Beauty_legacyaux_3fv

advertising/Client Keywords: On Running

advertising/Racing and Nascar Enthusiasts

client-blocklists/BP KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/ CLIENT LIST: AT&T KWs 2021 - EXCLUDES ALL

advertising/B2_Politically Active - DO NOT REMOVE_legacyaux_lmp

advertising/B2_Politics_legacyaux_8f3

advertising/B2_Positive News_legacyaux_hlt

advertising/B2_Presidential Elections_legacyaux_bxn

advertising/B2_Republicans_legacyaux_33h

advertising/B2_Society_legacyaux_0cz

client-blocklists/Client List: KPMG KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Navy Federal Credit Union NFCU KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Verizon KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Novo Nordisk KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Siemens KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Cisco KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Capital Concerts KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: AT&T ALT KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Mercedes KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/FX Excludes All Disney

client-blocklists/Client List: Inpixon KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Boeing KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Aetna KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Philip Morris KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Google KWs - INCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Dupixent neg kws - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Capital One KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY - 1.4.21

client-blocklists/Bank of America Merrill Lynch KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/CME KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Google PG KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Chase KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Office Depot KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: ETrade KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/politics&limit=20

Post Politics from The Washington Post is the source for political news headlines, in-depth politics coverage and political opinion, plus breaking news on the biden administration and White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, elections and more.

prism://prism.query/site,/politics/the-fix&limit=6