I wrote earlier about how all the Senate Democrats voted to have witnesses at the impeachment trial, joined by five Republicans.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) then both said they would call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) to grill her about what she knew and when she knew it.

That of course didn’t thrill Democrats. But then after realizing that they were digging themselves a hole from which they might not be able to get out, they flipped back again, making a deal to just accept a statement but not having any witnesses.

According to CNN, Senate Democrats pressured the House Managers to back off.

Per @JohnKingCNN, Senate Democratic leaders pressured House managers to back off call for witnesses. Both sides then cut a deal to enter statement from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Calif.) into record

— John Kruzel (@johnkruzel) February 13, 2021

New from @mkraju: After a last-minute decision to call witnesses, House Dems ultimately decided to cut a deal bc of the unpredictability of how that would turn out and fears it could backfire & undermine their case, according to multiple sources w/ knowledge of the discussions.

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) February 13, 2021

Translation: they were afraid that they would do more than just lose, that they were going to open up a whole can of worms, with people calling Pelosi and others into question.

Now the Senate has just voted to acquit President Donald Trump. While they had seven votes from Republicans, they needed a 2/3 vote to convict, or 67 senators. They weren’t even close and it was clear beforehand that they would not be. The final vote was 57-43.

The seven Republican senators were:

Richard Burr of North Carolina
Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
Susan Collins of Maine
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
Mitt Romney of Utah
Ben Sasse of Nebraska
Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania

— USA TODAY Politics (@usatodayDC) February 13, 2021

All the usual suspects.

Democrats had a lot of issues from the start: a snap impeachment without a hearing, no witnesses or evidence produced so no record for the House Managers to really work from, the question of whether it was even constitutional at all to proceed against a former president no longer in office and the failure of the facts to support the “incitement to insurrection” charge that was a massive overreach of a charge.

Liberals are now furious at what they feel was a cave at the last minute by the Democrats when they could have dragged it out and called witnesses. The reaction was glorious.

Trumps’s lawyers … If there’s witnesses, we’re going to put Nancy Pelosi under oath.

Democrats … Let’s end this now. Check please. 😂

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) February 13, 2021

Whose hearts and minds did Dems think they were going to win by folding and having Trump acquitted today? Four GOP Senators legitimately voted with Dems to have witnesses. Chuck Schumer did the impossible. Now we hate him as much as we do Trump.

— Ron Waxman 🏳️‍🌈 (@RonWaxman) February 13, 2021

Kamala Harris’ niece:

This is so weak.

— Meena Harris (@meenaharris) February 13, 2021

The finger pointing has begun.

Seems like Senate Democrats are trying to put this disaster on the managers, but they themselves decided to backtrack after voting for witnesses

Clearly there was a communication issue -> https://t.co/qcn6FhGgFC

— Rachael Bade (@rachaelmbade) February 13, 2021

The Biden team tried to run away from the blame-pointing as much as they could, claiming they didn’t have anything to do with the witness decision.

A senior Biden administration official tells CNN's @JohnJHarwood, “we were not involved” in the Democratic House Impeachment Managers decision to pull the plug on witnesses.

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) February 13, 2021

You know it’s bad when they’re all scrambling and no one wants to take responsibility for the crash and burn that this was. Bottom line: they all screwed up when they tried once again to take Trump down, he prevails again.

If you’re mad that the public won’t get a full accounting of what happened 1/6 without witnesses, there’s ONE PERSON you should all be sending your comment cards to.

She made a strategic choice to go without sworn testimony. And to focus on incitement over dereliction of duty. pic.twitter.com/USoawSLqD9

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) February 13, 2021

HT: Twitchy