Senate votes against calling new witnesses in Trump's impeachment trial

A razor-thin majority of Senate Republicans on Friday voted against a Democratic proposal to admit additional witnesses and documents into President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

The final tally was 51 votes against the motion, and 49 in favor, CNBC reports.

The vote dashed Democrats’ hopes of hearing testimony from former Trump national security advisor John Bolton, and it shifted the weeks-long trial into its final stages.

Two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Utah’s Mitt Romney, broke with their party in order to join Democrats in voting to admit additional evidence, but the majority, 51 Republicans, did not.

Democrats had needed at least four GOP senators to vote with them, and they fell short of that threshold by two votes.

Following the adjournment of the Senate on Friday, McConnell called a recess in the Senate, likely in order to continue ongoing negotiations between the White House, Senate Republicans and, to a lesser extent, Senate Democrats, over the next steps in the trial.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the vote “a perfidy, it’s a grand tragedy, one of the worst tragedies that the Senate has ever overcome.”