Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the Senate chamber for votes on federal judges as a massive budget pact between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump is facing a key vote in the GOP-held Senate later, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, July 31, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

When Senators Rob Portman, Cory Gardner, Lamar Alexander, and finally Lisa Murkowski announced that they would vote against the Democrat gambit to call more witnesses and have the Senate do he job Nancy Pelosi and her minions were unwilling to undertake, the end of the impeachment trial of President Trump became clear. On Wednesday, there will be a vote to acquit President Trump, but this is how we get there.

Today, the Senate will vote on the subject of calling more witnesses. Mitch McConnell has the votes to win.

Since the proposal requires the buy-in of senators of both parties and the president, the details and timeline could shift.

Some Republicans and the White House are still hoping for an acquittal vote before the State of the Union Tuesday night.

— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) January 31, 2020

I have to question this a bit. I find it difficult to believe that there is anything left requiring “buy in” that could cause McConnell to not have 51 votes. Once the vote to end the trial testimony is made, there are no more issues out there to peel off Republican senators.

If the proposal is approved by all parties, the trial would not be in session this weekend. It would resume Monday with six hours of closing arguments divided for the House Managers and the WH defense. 4/

— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) January 31, 2020

Again if accepted by all parties, Tuesday would allow senators 10 minutes each to make a statement. It would not be within the confines of the trial to allow senators to not be present, which would allow 2020 candidates the ability to be in the campaign trail. END

— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) January 31, 2020

Adam Schiff’s CNN Minime, Manu Raju, has a bit of a different take

“There is no deal between McConnell and myself,” Schumer says, adding that members should have to explain their views, likely meaning floor speeches. Another sign that acquittal vote will wait til next week

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 31, 2020

This makes more sense to me. McConnell would be pressing to vote to acquit before the State of the Union speech. Schumer wants Trump to give the speech before he is acquitted so they can refer to him as being an “impeached president” in their spin room statements. McConnell might very well not have had the votes to cut short the ability of senators to bloviate.

A non-trivial amount of the horse trading here is down to Senators wanting to go home for the weekend and Schumer threatening to introduce motions that will fail but waste time. Mitch, end this https://t.co/v4SKDh90br

— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) January 31, 2020

The only danger in this whole strategy is that we can look forward to another five days of specious and spurious leaks and allegations intended to force McConnell to reopen the impeachment trial to new witnesses.