Under McConnell’s plan, the Senate Republican majority will vote to hear opening arguments from House Democrats’ impeachment managers and Trump’s defense and then make decisions on witnesses and documents later. That blueprint ignores Democrats’ requests to make decisions on new evidence simultaneously with laying out the trial plan and will be based on former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, though Congress did not face the same level of stonewalling from Clinton's administration 20 years ago.

“Republicans can only get behind kicking cans down the road. Because they know we have the full weight of the argument on our side. There’s virtually no argument that we should not have witnesses, that we should not have documents,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), responding to McConnell on the Senate floor. “The American people do not want a cover-up.”

Schumer has proposed subpoenaing four witnesses as well as documents regarding the Trump administration’s decision-making on delays to Ukraine aid and requests for the Ukrainian government to announce a probe into Joe Biden. Schumer can force votes that matter once the trial starts and reiterated his plans to force the issue on Wednesday.

Pelosi has held the articles of impeachment since December, hoping to force McConnell to the negotiating table. And she indicated no plans to budge this week, writing her colleagues that McConnell should “immediately publish” his plan so that Democrats “can see the arena in which we will be participating, appoint managers and transmit the articles to the Senate."

But McConnell is unmoved.

“The Senate will address all these questions at the appropriate time. And that is for the Senate, and the Senate only to decide. Period,” McConnell said.

