Trump meets with Romney, Collins, other Republican senators at White House during impeachment hearing

WASHINGTON – As House Democrats conducted another impeachment hearing, President Donald Trump and top aides held meetings Thursday with Republican senators who might well have to serve as jurors for an impeachment trial of the president.

While Trump touched briefly on impeachment at a White House lunch with eight GOP senators, aides met with another group of senators to start discussing plans for a Senate trial that could last at least two weeks, participants said.

The president's lunch guests – including GOP senators who have been critical of Trump's conduct with respect to Ukraine – said Trump talked about impeachment during the meeting at the White House but did not demand their loyalty should the Senate be forced to conduct a trial.

“He made a few brief comments (about impeachment) at the beginning,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "He did not ask anything of anyone.”

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who has had a tense relationship with the president and pointedly declined to defend him during the impeachment inquiry, said he and Trump were "friendly and cordial."

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Meanwhile, another delegation of Senate Republicans met with Trump aides who included acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House counsel Pat Cipollone, said officials speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a private conference.

The Senate delegation included Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and other committee members such as Ted Cruz of Texas.

Graham also began laying the groundwork for a trial by sending a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seeking documents on the Bidens' relationship with Ukraine.

No final decisions were made, officials said.

The meetings came after a rough week for Trump during a series of House impeachment hearings. His ambassador to the European Union and national security officials testified about a Trump plan to extract a pledge from Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in exchange for military aid.

In the run-up to Thursday's lunch, Trump appeared to appeal to the Republican-run Senate in a tweet in which he denounced House Democrats who are pursuing impeachment as "scum."

"Keep fighting tough, Republicans, you are dealing with human scum who have taken Due Process and all of the Republican Party’s rights away from us during the most unfair hearings in American History," Trump tweeted.

He added: "But we are winning big, and they will soon be on our turf."

Trump did not define "turf," but Republicans do control the Senate and would conduct a trial of Trump if House Democrats decide to impeach him.

The White House lunch meeting included at least two GOP senators – Romney and Collins – who have questioned Trump's dealings with Ukraine that are at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.

It was the latest event in a Trump outreach program to Republican lawmakers that began after the prospect of impeachment surfaced in mid-September.

Officials said Trump has probably spoken, either individually or in groups, with all 53 Republican senators – all jurors in a potential impeachment. Two officials discussed the outreach on condition of anonymity, citing the private nature of the meetings.

Several administration officials have said they would not be surprised if the Democratic-run House votes to impeach Trump, albeit with no Republican votes. Officials also said they expect the Republican Senate to acquit Trump and perhaps dismiss the case outright.

Others said the votes for a dismissal are not there, at least not right now, and the White House is braced for an eventual trial that was the subject of the senators' meeting with Mulvaney, Cipollone and other top Trump aides.

Conviction and removal from office would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate; Republicans have 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate. That means impeachment advocates would need to flip at least 20 Republican senators.

Romney said the president brought up impeachment at the start of the White House meeting, but not to strategize or seek support.

Trump "made some initial comments that related to the impeachment process, but it's nothing that I haven't heard on TV from him," Romney said. "So, there was no inside story or some argument that he was providing for us.”

Trump then opened the floor and asked the group of senators what they wanted to discuss and were interested in, a frequent request at meetings of this type.

Topics included legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs, vaping and flavored refillable cartridges and the proposed Canada-Mexico trade deal.

Senators said they and Trump also discussed the proposed short-term spending bill to punt a looming government shutdown to the end of the year; Collins said she believes Trump would sign that plan.

Romney, a longtime Trump rival, has criticized him for asking the president of Ukraine to investigate political rival Biden. Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, called Trump's actions "wrong and appalling."

Trump responded by calling Romney "a pompous ass," while Trump allies described Romney as a fake Republican.

The two men also clashed during Trump's 2016 campaign. During the primary process, Romney cast the New York businessman as a threat to the Republican Party, while Trump branded Romney "a loser."

Yet after his election, Trump interviewed Romney for the secretary of State job before nominating Rex Tillerson to the post.

As for a potential impeachment trial in the near future, Romney told USA TODAY last month that "I will study the law and the facts and on that basis make an informed judgment consistent with Constitutional duties."

After the White House meeting, Romney told reporters that his difficult relationship with Trump did not surface during the lunch meeting.

When a reporter read back Trump's "pompous ass" tweet, Romney laughed and said: "That's as accurate as it is irrelevant."

House impeachment investigators are also looking into evidence that Trump halted military aid to Ukraine if it did not agree to investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who had business interests in the state.

Collins, a moderate Republican senator, has said she will not comment on the evidence unless or until it comes before the Senate.

The Maine senator has criticized some of the president's tweets about the case.

“I think the president would be better served by not tweeting at all on the testimony,” Collins told WMTW-TV. “His attorneys will be representing him should this come to a trial in the Senate and that's the time for them to have their say on the president's behalf.”

Other Republican senators at the White House included Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky (a fierce critic of impeachment), Chuck Grassley of Iowa, John Hoeven of North Dakota, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.

The meeting also featured Johnny Isakson of Georgia, one of at least four Republican senators who do not plan to see re-election in 2020. Impeachment supporters have eyed those retiring senators as potential pickups, though White House officials expressed confidence that the party is united.

Meanwhile, future steps in the House impeachment inquiry are uncertain.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not provide any timeline for where the inquiry goes after Thursday's hearing, including the question of whether Democrats would begin to draw up articles of impeachment.

“We haven’t made any decision yet,” Pelosi said.