As Twitchy reported earlier, Sen. Josh Hawley asked why Rep. Adam Schiff keeps bringing up bribery on the Senate floor when bribery is not mentioned in the articles of impeachment. That was a hint to a question he had prepared and was co-signed by Sens. Martha McSally, Rick Scott, and John Hoeven.

Senator Scott, McSally and several others ask: Do the articles of impeachment charge the president with bribery, extortion or anything akin to it? — Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) January 30, 2020

Senate impeachment trial question 55 is from GOP Senators McSally, Scott-FL, Hawley and Hoeven to President's counsel on whether articles of impeachement charge President with bribery or exortion. — Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) January 30, 2020

55th question, from @SenMcSallyAZ et al.: answer Schiff including "bribery" and "extortion" when not in articles? Philbin: What Schiff just did violated due process and would be thrown out of any court. Bribery, Extortion not in articles. #ImpeachmentTrial — Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) January 30, 2020

55th question, from Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) and others:

Do the articles of impeachment charge the president with bribery, extortion? Or anything like it? If not, then are any of the things they talk about in the articles that reference these crimes appropriate? — Evan Donovan (@EvanDonovan) January 30, 2020

White House counsel Patrick Philbin argued that were this a criminal trial, it would be an automatic mistrial, seeing as Rep. Adam Schiff keeps charging the defendant with crimes that don’t appear in the indictment.

Philbin:

No, they're not in the articles, and legal precedent shows they shouldn't be considered. If Schiff had talked about those crimes in a real trial, as he just did here, it would have been a mistrial and we'd all be going home. What Schiff just attempted here was improper — Evan Donovan (@EvanDonovan) January 30, 2020

Philbin is brilliant,Trump's secret weapon. He just nailed Schiff for going beyond the language of (noncrime) charges in articles of impeachment by suggesting Trump committed crimes like bribery & extortion. He said if any prosecutor in US tried that, judge would declare mistrial — Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) January 30, 2020

Schiff got absolutely torched by Philbin. Alleging non-charged crimes is itself an abuse of power https://t.co/mF4xFxEn3u — Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) January 30, 2020

Here’s video:

WH Counsel Patrick Philbin: "If this were a criminal trial in ordinary court & Mr. Schiff had done what he just did…& start talking about crimes of bribery & extortion that were not in the indictment, it would've been an automatic mistrial." Watch — https://t.co/0c6IWSaX4Y pic.twitter.com/TfJ5RDw0Kq — CSPAN (@cspan) January 30, 2020

Dems know they've lost and they'll lie, cheat and steal to the bitter (for them) end. — Lissa Merriman (@lissasno1fan) January 30, 2020

Time to be over. Quit wasting taxpayer time and money. Acquit! — Julie H. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@howard_juliea) January 30, 2020

If it was a legal proceeding it would have been tossed as fanciful speculation at best with zero actual evidence. — ?? T Sheldon ?? (@WTSheldon) January 30, 2020

He’s right. Nothing Schiff presented would be admissible in a courtroom. — Sal Bucciarelli (@Sal_Bucciarelli) January 30, 2020

And Schiff knows it but he does not abide by anything but his own agenda. — Barbara #StillYourPresident (@barbara__green) January 30, 2020

Why is this allowed to continue? Does the Chief Justice have no control? @OANN — Jim Marcello (@jimmarcello) January 30, 2020

SCHIFF is not right… he is like an alien Bot sent to ruin America. — Nathan X Smith (@NathanXSmith3) January 30, 2020

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