WASHINGTON – The Senate on Friday rejected additional witness testimony in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, preventing former national security adviser John Bolton and others with firsthand knowledge of Trump’s Ukraine dealings from appearing under oath.

The 51-49 vote, with only two moderate Republicans defecting, marked one of the most consequential moments to date in a trial that could define Trump’s White House tenure.

No meaningful hurdles now stand in the way of the GOP-run chamber rendering a final verdict on the impeachment articles covering abuse of power and obstruction of Congress – a vote that is all but certain to acquit Trump, likely along partisan lines.

The outcome drew outrage from Democrats, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer arguing that there will be a “permanent asterisk” next to Trump’s eventual acquittal.

“No witnesses, no documents in an impeachment trial is a perfidy — it’s a grand tragedy,” the New York Democrat said just after the vote, accusing the GOP of enabling a cover-up that will cause America to “remember this day, unfortunately, where the Senate … turned away from truth.”

But the GOP celebrated that the end was nigh for a process they’ve castigated as nothing more than a partisan hack job.

While the vote against additional witnesses and documents could have, in theory, led to the trial ending late Friday, Democrats and Republicans reached a deal to instead begin closing arguments and speeches Monday and hold the acquittal vote Wednesday.

That timeline, agreed to late Friday, allows the four senators running for the Democratic presidential nomination to spend the weekend campaigning in Iowa, home of the critical first-in-the-nation caucuses that will be held Monday.

Back in Washington, sooner or later, Trump will be vindicated.

“Enough is enough,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, said on his impeachment podcast, “Verdict,” adding in a later radio interview that the impeachment push had “to do with partisan anger from the Democrats trying to overturn the last election.”

Friday’s proceedings began just after noon Central time. House impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team were each given up to two hours of debate, though the president’s counsel didn’t use nearly that much time. The critical vote came just before dinnertime.

The real action was off the floor.

Most GOP senators – including Cruz and Texas Sen. John Cornyn – had already been explicit that there was no need for new witnesses. But Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah had signaled their support for fresh testimony, stoking the prospect that other Republicans might follow suit.

Four Republicans were needed to force the issue.

House impeachment managers kept pushing for a breakthrough until the last minute of their allotted time. They said an extension of the trial, perhaps even for weeks, would be trivial compared to ensuring that the proceedings involved a full and fair accounting of available facts.

No matter.

A swing Republican, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, announced late Thursday that he would not vote for additional testimony. Another key Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, announced Friday afternoon that she also would vote against calling fresh witnesses.

“Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate,” Murkowski said. “I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything.”

Their decisions wrapped up the vote before the question was even called.

Inevitability

That kind of inevitability has hung over the whole process, even amid the brief period of uncertainty on the witness vote. There appears to be nothing close to the two-thirds majority needed in the Senate to convict Trump, barring a surprise of monumental proportions.

All of that was probable from the moment the House launched an impeachment probe into Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival, and his son Hunter Biden over his business work in Ukraine.

The president denied any wrongdoing from the start, calling the investigation a “witch hunt” and a “scam.”

“The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats keep chanting ‘fairness’, when they put on the most unfair Witch Hunt in the history of the U.S. Congress,” he wrote on Twitter, not long before the witness vote. “They didn’t do their job, had no case. The Dems are scamming America!”

Trump’s defense team argued much the same – accusing Democrats, in more lawyerly terms, of pursuing a politically motivated attack that fails to show legitimate presidential misdeeds, much less anything that would warrant Trump’s removal from office.

“All you need in this case is the Constitution and your common sense,” Trump attorney Pat Cipollone said.

The central accusation is that Trump pursued a quid pro quo, demanding a Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens in exchange for a White House meeting for Zelenksiy and also for nearly $400 million in military aid for the Eastern European country.

The Democrat-run House last month voted to impeach Trump, though the lack of any Republican support for the articles portended the Senate outcome.

“You don’t decide whether or not to defend the democracy, defend the Constitution based on whether you’re going to win,” said Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat who’s the only Texan among the seven House impeachment managers.

“It’s about the defense that has to be made to show the American people that this president has participated in grave misconduct.”

House investigators sought to bolster their case by interviewing several Trump administration officials – including Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. But other Trump aides, including former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, refused to participate.

No potential witness loomed larger than Bolton, the former national security adviser.

Trump’s former adviser created a stir amid reports that his forthcoming memoir includes his firsthand confirmation that Trump froze the military aid to Ukraine as a way to prod that country into investigating the Bidens over Hunter Biden’s work for a company called Burisma.

The bombshell, which Trump has disputed, raised the prospect that the Senate might bring in Bolton under subpoena.

Romney and Collins, both moderates, were long considered most likely to join with the Senate’s 47 Democrats and independents. Murkowski, another moderate, was also closely watched before she announced her “no” vote, ripping the House’s case as “rushed and flawed.”

Then there was Alexander, who ended speculation over his intentions late Thursday.

Case proven, but doesn’t meet high bar

The Tennessean issued a written statement that said House impeachment managers had proved that Trump asked Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and that he withheld aid, “at least in part,” to pressure Ukraine to that end. Further, Alexander said, Trump’s actions were “inappropriate.”

“But there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense,” he said, explaining why he didn’t support hearing additional testimony.

California Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead House manager, nevertheless tried to thread the needle.

He devoted significant time to lobbying senators on the need to hear sworn testimony from Bolton. But he also said the evidence he and others put forward of Trump’s wrongdoing was “overwhelmingly clear without John Bolton.”

In reconciling those points, Schiff put the onus on the senators.

“If you have any question about it, you can erase all doubt” by bringing in the former national security adviser, he said.

Cornyn, among others, seized upon that point.

“House managers claim that the evidence supporting conviction is ‘overwhelming’ directly contradicts their claim about ‘no witnesses,’” he wrote on Twitter, noting that the Senate heard the evidence the House obtained from 17 witnesses. “Both can’t be true.”

Texans stand with Trump

Cruz and Cornyn, in any case, left no doubt how they would proceed.

The Texans had rejected the need for additional witnesses, with Cornyn calling the prospect unnecessary and likely to set a bad precedent. Both have also signaled that they will vote to acquit Trump, with Cruz calling the impeachment articles a “sham.”

The duo, in particular, downplayed the Bolton allegations.

Cruz suggested that it “doesn’t matter if there was a quid pro quo or not” and devoted a question on the Senate floor to exploring that point. Cornyn, meanwhile, said this week that Bolton’s assertions amounted to “nothing different than what we’ve already heard.”

“No crimes were alleged, and these events never actually occurred — the withholding of aid and the investigation,” Cornyn said on Fox News.

The senators’ posture did not escape the notice of Garcia, the Texan impeachment manager whose seat in the Senate chamber gives her a direct view of the duo. She said that both “seem to be listening” and “very intent,” adding that she’s “hopeful we can persuade one of them.”

“But it’s doubtful,” Garcia conceded on a conference call with reporters.

Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa was less charitable.

“John Cornyn and Ted Cruz shamelessly just chose to support [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell’s cover-up over upholding their Constitutional oath and doing their jobs for the people of Texas,” he said. “Today is a shameful day for our Constitution and our country.”