Let’s see a real trial in the Senate.

Let’s hear opening arguments, live testimony from witnesses who have not yet even been deposed, and closing arguments.

Let the trial run for weeks or a month, with the whole country tuned in, and let the chips fall where they may.

If the Senate impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999 is any indicator, the American people will come to a better understanding of the gravity or flimsiness of the case against President Donald Trump and whether he should be removed from office.

Editorials

In 1999, the Senate’s Republican majority insisted on a lengthy trial, disagreeing with those — including this editorial page — who felt it would only add to the fierceness of the political passions tearing us apart as a nation. The Senate’s Republican leadership wanted to hammer home what a perjuring cad Clinton was.

It backfired on them.

After a 37-day trial, a bipartisan majority of the Senate voted against convicting Clinton, as was expected. What was not expected, at least by Clinton’s accusers, was that the president’s popularity would soar after his impeachment and remain high after his trial.

The American people watched the Senate proceedings and came to the view that removing Clinton from office for lying under oath about sex would have been a gross overreaction. They rewarded Clinton with a Gallup Poll approval rating of 68% on the day he was acquitted.

A full and lengthy trial for Trump could serve the country in the same way now. It could lead to a better national understanding of whether the charges against the president are scurrilous or justified, and in any event whether they warrant his removal from office. Such a trial would not necessarily divide the country further. It could result in a broader consensus as to the true facts and appropriate consequences.

For that to happen, the Senate trial must be conducted independently of any coordination with the White House. Anything short of that would result in a Republican show trial. Yet Senate President Mitch McConnell already has promised that “everything I do during this, I will be coordinating with White House counsel.”

The Senate also should demand documents the White House has so far withheld and call key witnesses whom Trump blocked from testifying before a committee of the House. That would include former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. They have firsthand knowledge as to whether Trump put the squeeze on Ukraine for purely personal political favors.

McConnell has brushed aside for now a request from the Democrats that he call witnesses, pointing out that none were called during Clinton’s impeachment trial.

McConnell is misrepresenting the facts. No live witnesses were called during Clinton’s trial, but videotaped closed-door depositions were taken of three key witnesses, including the woman about whom Clinton allegedly lied, Monica Lewinsky. Excerpts from the videotapes were played in the Senate.

Nobody has yet to hear a word under oath from Bolton, Mulvaney or other top Trump officials whom the president ordered not to testify.

The purpose of a trial, as every first-year law student knows, is to get to the truth. If Trump and the Republicans have no fear of that truth, then they have no reason not to invite and welcome sworn testimony from Bolton, Mulvaney and the others.

The House on Wednesday, for only the third time in American history, voted to impeach a president. Regardless of what the Senate does next, that is an indelible stain on Trump’s presidency.

But the Senate owes it to the American people, and to the integrity of our nation’s distinct and separate three branches of government, to dig more honestly into the charges against Trump.

We doubt this would vindicate Trump. The case against him already is strong. But if there is exculpatory evidence that the nation has yet to hear, let’s hear it now.

The American people deserve to know all the true facts.

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