Since the beginning of the impeachment trial, there has been disagreement between lawmakers about what it means to be an "impartial" juror. The words may have been a part of the oath they swore at the beginning of the trial, a promise to deliver "impartial justice", but it's not clear whether either side had any intention of fulfilling that promise.
Without considering the question of whether or not President Donald Trump is guilty of what he has been accused, we can examine whether or not lawmakers came to this impeachment with the intention of doing justice.
For the GOP, long before the Senate trial began, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News, "Everything I do during this, I will be coordinating with White House counsel." Many lawmakers, even some from the GOP, expressed concerns about the way McConnell was approaching the trial, but he claimed to be following the example left by the Clinton impeachment.
To his point, Former Sen. Tom Daschle, who was Senate Democratic leader during the Clinton impeachment trial, told CNN that while he himself didn't coordinate with the Clinton administration, his staff did. He said he didn't fault McConnell for his decision to coordinate directly.
"That's the way it is now," Daschle said. "It's different."
If we accept this argument, then McConnell's coordination with the Whitehouse wouldn't disqualify him in this case. Then again, just because Democrats coordinated with Clinton doesn't mean that the majority party coordinating with the Whitehouse during an impeachment trial is perfectly fine. That does seem to be the precedent that both the GOP and Democrats have resigned themselves to following.
Still, there are other reasons to question the impartiality of the Senators. The Republicans knew that they would not be convicting the President before they had heard any arguments.
"We all know how it's going to end. There is no chance the President is going to be removed from office," McConnell told Fox.
The Democrats, on the other hand, for the most part always intended to vote for impeachment.
There is one key difference between how these groups behaved after they made up their minds. Democrats were always willing to hear more evidence. It was Republicans who voted down measures for witnesses and additional evidence.
Again, Republicans claim this issue isn't as simple as it may seem. They argue that if Democrats wanted more witnesses, the House should have enforced subpoenas against potential witnesses. They say the House is trying to pass off their job onto the Senate.
The Democrats argue that they didn't want the investigation to be held up by months of litigation surrounding whether or not Trump officials would be required or even allowed to testify. During the House investigation, the Whitehouse was doing anything within their power to keep top officials from testifying. Whether or not the House should have pushed harder for witnesses is arguable, but the fact that every other impeachment trial up to now has featured witness testimony is undeniable.
There are also other reasons why it would make sense to for Senators to want to hear more evidence. Since the beginning of the trial, significant new evidence has come forward.
Lev Parnus has released a slew of damning information on the Ukraine affair, including a video of Trump order a U.S. Ambassador to be taken out, "Get her out. Take her out. Do it." John Bolton has announced that he would be willing to testify in the Senate trial, and a manuscript of his book was leaked which included other damning information regarding the President's connection to the withholding of aid in exchange for investigations.
Despite all of this new, unexplored evidence, Republican Senators voted to deny any new evidence or testimony into the trial claiming that there was no need to extend a trial in which all of the jurors had already made up their minds. After this vote on Friday, it was decided that closing arguments would be made on Monday and the final vote for acquittal would be held on Wednesday.
One of the Senators that Democrats hoped would join them in voting for witnesses, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, announced on Friday that she wouldn't support the vote because of the partisan investigation and trial.
"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 in a statement. "I don't believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed."
Whether or not the President is guilty of what he has been accused has proven unimportant. Most people, even many within the GOP, agree he did withhold aid in exchange for investigations of his political rivals.
Democrats believed he was guilty from the start, and Republicans didn't really care from the start. As the President's own counsel said, anything the President does to get himself elected "in the public interest" cannot be impeachable. Republicans seem to agree that Trump did exactly what Democrats accused him of, but that his doing it wasn't impeachable. Ultimately, we won't know which party has come out on top in this impeachment until election day.
Meanwhile, polls on impeachment have remained relatively unchanged since the investigation began. 46% of voters support removing the President, and a majority of voters feel he committed the crimes of obstruction and abuse of office. So far, the fact that a majority of Americans feel the President is guilty hasn't mattered to the GOP Senators who plan on acquitting him. Time will tell whether they will be held accountable for this decision.