Republicans vie for quick end to trial after witness vote Friday

Republicans, feeling increasingly confident the Senate will not vote to call new witnesses in the president’s impeachment trial, began plotting a path to acquittal perhaps as early as Friday.

“It does look to me like we are headed toward ending this week sometime,” Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican and a member of the GOP leadership team, said Thursday.

The second phase of the trial was set to conclude Thursday night when lawmakers finished 16 hours of questioning the House impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team.

Republican senators will meet privately Friday morning before the trial convenes again at 1 p.m.

They will map out the quickest route to ending the Senate trial, which on Friday will conclude a second week.

When the trial convenes, impeachment managers and defense lawyers will each have two hours to present final arguments before the Senate takes a pivotal vote on whether to end the trial or call additional witnesses.

A vote to call witnesses is now considered unlikely, Republicans told the Washington Examiner.

Three Republicans are seriously weighing a vote to call witnesses, but the vast majority of GOP senators want the trial to end this week.