In a Jan. 11, 1999, interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Biden suggested he was "open to the prospect of witnesses" but only if House Republicans who were managing Clinton's impeachment in the Senate "make a case as to why they didn't see any need for any witnesses and now they think they should call witnesses."

Yet Biden and other Clinton allies — including now-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — lost the witness fight during that 1999 trial. The Senate agreed to depose former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, whose affair with Clinton led to just the second presidential impeachment in history, as well as two other witnesses.

Despite those interviews, Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in February 1999. Clinton’s administration cooperated more with the special counsel, leading to a more voluminous record of evidence in his trial. The Trump White House has refused to make officials available for interviews or key documents to House investigators.

The Biden campaign declined to comment.



Biden’s arguments from two decades ago are being echoed by Senate GOP leaders and the White House now as the Senate prepares to vote Friday on the critical issue of whether to subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton and other witnesses. Bolton has asserted in an unpublished manuscript that Trump told him in August 2019 that U.S. military aid to Ukraine would be withheld unless Ukrainian officials "helped with" investigations into the Bidens, according to The New York Times.

Republicans have threatened to subpoena Joe and Hunter Biden in the trial, arguing that Hunter Biden’s role at Ukraine energy firm Burisma is what sparked Trump’s interest in fighting corruption there. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens and Democrats argue they are simply not relevant to Trump's trial. The Democratic House impeached Trump over charges he abused his power by pushing Ukraine to investigate Biden, a 2020 rival.

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Biden — who at one point suggested he might not comply with a subpoena for the Trump trial before backtracking — has said that Senate subpoenas should be sent to the White House, not him and his son.

“I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial … this impeachment is about Trump’s conduct, not mine,” Biden tweeted on Dec. 28. “The subpoenas should go to witnesses with testimony to offer to Trump’s shaking down the Ukraine government — they should go to the White House.”

The Trump trial has often found Schumer, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other veteran senators arguing against the very positions they held 21 years ago.

Schumer argued against allowing new witnesses to be deposed in that case, while McConnell was all for it. Now the two leaders have completely reversed their positions, showing politics is as much as matter of timing as principle.