WASHINGTON- As day 9 of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial takes place, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) says he has been preparing for some time, anticipating the direction of the trial.
“I kept a record all the way through the House when they were presenting their case,” Lankford said. “For me, the most important thing in any trial is going to be the facts around the case itself.”
Lankford said since there was a lot of speculation surrounding the trial, people began to overlook the facts.
“It’s just one thing after another the House has brought up and said, ‘look, this is a really big scheme and a really big conspiracy.’ When the White House team actually came and said ‘here are the facts that are around these accusations’, you would see a lot of things fall apart in [the case against President Trump], so the facts are a key issue in this,” Lankford said.
Lankford doesn’t believe witnesses will bring any new information because the facts have already been given and the important questions have been answered.
“There is never a time when in any story that every single question is always answered on every issue,” Lankford said. “ But the questions that have been raised in this case, yes, they were answered… this does not rise to the level of impeachment because though the House has made it look like a huge thing, when you actually see it in context, it was really really tiny.”
Lankford’s issue isn’t with the trial at hand, but the unnecessary bias surrounding it. He believes this issue could be solved through personal research.
“I encourage people, no matter what your perspective is on the president, go look at the facts and understand in a court case, this is not based on our perspective or our like or dislike of any individual. We have to base it on facts and on any impeachment, because impeachment is extremely rare in our country, we are also setting a future precedent for what will happen in the days ahead,” Lankford said.
The Senate will vote to allow witnesses on Friday. Should the resolution be blocked, the trial could end as early as Saturday.
Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
