The Senate math is not in Mr. Schumer’s favor. With 47 senators caucusing with the Democrats (including two independents who routinely vote with them), he is still four shy of the 51 votes he would need to force subpoenas for witnesses and documents. While it appears that Ms. Collins and two other Republicans — Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah — might be persuaded to go along in voting to hear from Mr. Bolton and others, Mr. Schumer was hard pressed to name a fourth vote.
“There are people vulnerable politically. There are people who have a conscience,” he said in an interview. “There are people who are retiring. There are people who might have some beef. Who knows? I will tell you this: I talk to Republicans all the time, and they’re upset by this president.”
In the end, Mr. Schumer knows there is almost no chance the Republican-led Senate will convict Mr. Trump for pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, a move that would take two-thirds of senators, or 67. But the focus on what constitutes a fair trial, he argued, will either succeed in unearthing new information about Mr. Trump, or at least help Democrats pick up seats in 2020.
“It’s a win-win,” he said, describing his strategy, though he quickly corrected himself, settling on “no lose” as a better frame. If Republicans block new evidence, Democrats will deem the trial “illegitimate and a sham,” he said, adding, “Pursuing witnesses and documents makes us better off, no matter the outcome.”
The position is at odds with the one Mr. Schumer took almost exactly 21 years ago, when he opposed calling witnesses during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. (Mr. Schumer likes to recount his status as, in his own words, a “historical footnote”: the only member of Congress to have voted three times against Mr. Clinton’s impeachment — twice as a House member in 1998, first in the Judiciary Committee and then on the floor, and again after winning election to the Senate.)
Mr. Schumer argued that there was no contradiction. Unlike the witnesses he is seeking against Mr. Trump — including Mr. Bolton and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff — the Clinton witnesses had already testified, so there was not necessarily anything new to be learned from them. By contrast, Mr. Trump directed a blanket stonewall of the House impeachment inquiry, refusing to provide any documents or allow White House officials to testify.
Republicans, however, howl that he is being hypocritical. They say Mr. Schumer is engaged in a transparent bid to play politics with the most sacred of senatorial duties. As to whether he will get four Republicans on board on key questions of how the trial should unfold, Senator John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican known for his folksy quips, said: “When donkeys fly.”