Senate Republicans have secured the votes they need to block witnesses at the Senate impeachment trial, but they don’t appear to have settled on a plan for how to end the trial once that witness vote fails.

We’ve known all along that it wasn’t Trump who is on trial in this Senate exercise but the Senate itself and particularly its Republican members. The last few hours have witnessed their convicting themselves more clearly than I could have anticipated. A short time ago news broke that Sen. Murkowski was a vote for no witnesses.

This matched with a flurry of new statements from Republican Senators explaining or justifying their votes. Last night, retiring Sen. Alexander said that all the charges against the President had been proven. But they were only “inappropriate” not wrong or impeachable. Sen. Sasse told reporters that Alexander spoke for him and other Senators. Then a few moments ago, Sen. Rubio seemed to concede that the charges were not only proven but that they were in fact impeachable but that it was still best not to convict. “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.”

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Let me share with you some thoughts about polls and how they relate to the impending Democratic presidential primary process.

Let me start with some core assumptions. First is that I think Bernie Sanders has a range of electoral vulnerabilities that makes President Trump’s reelection far more likely if Sanders is the nominee. I think this is the case because he supports a number of policies that just are not popular and are tailor made for attacks disqualifying him with the general electorate. There’s also a history of identification and left cultural politics that are also tailor-made for the kind of attack ads that can disqualify a candidate.

But there’s at least some problem with my reasoning. As I’ve told you again and again, people discount polls at their peril. They are imperfect and they measure a fluid reality. But they are one of the key metrics that allow us to step outside our assumptions, personal milieu, region, ideology and see what the whole country actually thinks.

I want to flag this again. Yes, Alexander says no witnesses. But the real thing in his statement is that he says that all the House’s factual claims have been proven. He doesn’t contest any of them. He just says it doesn’t matter or is no more than inappropriate. Actually, if you concede all the accusations are true there really isn’t any reason for more witnesses. But Alexander’s core concession is the tell here.

We wrapped up the impeachment trial’s Q&A portion last night and two key senators immediately announced where they stood on witnesses: Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was for them, but Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) was against.

Now we’re waiting for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) to make a statement (Romney is a yes). But, as Tierney Sneed wrote last night, the best Democrats can hope for now is a 50-50 tie. Chief Justice John Roberts could break it, but he’s not expected to do so.

Is it game over for Democrats? Not quite.

What is most significant, telling in Sen. Alexander’s statement rejecting witnesses and evidence is really not the part on witnesses. I’m shocked that so many people were thinking there was actually a chance he was going to support holding a real trial. In his tweet storm he writes, straightforwardly enough, that “there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the U.S. Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense.” He’s willing to stipulate to all the claims. So really, what is the point of witnesses?

It’s as though he’s entering a pleas of nolo contendere on behalf of the President and stating that the offense simply doesn’t matter. He is willing to stipulate to all the House Manager’s factual claims. They just don’t matter. He later says that Trump’s action were “inappropriate” and no more. It is really as simple as this: he did it but it doesn’t matter.

New statement just out.

Another 3 hours or so of senator questions this evening, then we are expecting to hear from Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) on whether he will vote to hear witnesses. All the latest from the TPM team here.

Rick Hasen is one of the nation’s top experts on voter suppression and voter fraud propaganda of the sort often pushed by the Trump administration. He’s been a go-to source for our reporters and editors on these issues for years.

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I’ve said many times that it’s the Republican Senate rather than Donald Trump who is on trial in this exercise. That seems confirmed by everything we’ve seen so far. Nothing we’ve learned from Lev Parnas or John Bolton in recent days adds anything material to what we know about President Trump’s actions. Yes, we have an even higher level of proof or confirmation. But when a fact is already obvious and indisputable it’s pretty hard to prove it more.

What we have seen is more and more evidence or at least a clearer and clearer illustration of what Senate Republicans will accept from President Trump. No real trial. No witnesses. Open arguments that using state power to coerce foreign leaders to sabotage U.S. elections is fine and indeed proper.

To my mind, Democrats have done a good job on this.

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