“The House made a decision that they didn’t want to slow things down by having to go through the courts,” Murkowski told CNN. “And yet now they’re basically saying you guys gotta go through the courts. We didn’t, but we need you to.”

Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, said: “There will be parts of their testimony, they will be covered by executive privilege and parts that are not. Those have to be litigated. That’ll take a couple of months to be able to go through the process.”

Lankford, reiterating concerns voiced by many other Republicans, added: “To ask us to take a trial that can be two to five weeks and stretch it out to two to five months because they didn’t already do this? We can answer the question that they’re asking us right now without having to go through all that.’…

“Not would the witness tell us something we might not know because we just like to know?” Blunt said. “But would the witness change the result — and is it worth continuing to reward the bad performance of the House to stretch this out and for not a change in the outcome?