WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s defense team ended its arguments in his Senate trial Tuesday by broadly dismissing the elephant in the room: a leaked firsthand account from John Bolton, the former national security adviser, that the president directly tied aid to Ukraine to his demands for the country to investigate political rival Joe Biden.

That revelation, which emerged Sunday from a draft of Bolton’s upcoming book, has undercut the president’s defense and splintered Republicans as the trial heads into a crucial stage. On Wednesday senators are planning to start their public questioning of both the defense team and the Democratic House impeachment managers, with key votes on whether to call witnesses perhaps by the end of the week.

After initially sidestepping the Bolton reports in their arguments Monday, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow urged the Senate on Tuesday to examine the case on the merits of the arguments and to ignore the recent reports about Bolton.

Impeachment, Sekulow said, “is not a game of leaks and unsourced manuscripts. That is politics unfortunately.” Alexander Hamilton, he continued, “put impeachment in the hands of this body, the Senate, precisely and specifically, to be above that fray.” The Senate, Sekulow said, should “end the era of impeachment for good.”

Trump attorney Jay Sekulow says "I don't know" if you would call allegation in John Bolton manuscript report "evidence."

"I don't know what you'd call that. I'd call it inadmissible, but that's what it is." https://t.co/sZhSdr72Qk pic.twitter.com/nIPsy7ihCX

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 28, 2020

Calling witnesses would prolong the trial and introduce potentially damning testimony, upending White House and Senate Republicans’ plans for Trump’s quick acquittal.

Alan Dershowitz, a veteran defense attorney, was the only member of Trump’s 10-person team to mention Bolton’s name Monday, the first full day of the lawyers’ presentation. While Trump has argued that his July 25 call with the Ukrainian president that prompted the impeachment inquiry was “perfect,” Dershowitz at one point suggested a different defense tack, arguing essentially, so what?

“Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense,” Dershowitz told the Senate in his first appearance at the trial.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, echoed that argument Tuesday, suggesting that even if Democrats could get the necessary four Republican votes for a majority in favor of subpoenaing Bolton or other witnesses, it wouldn’t make much of a difference given that the Republican-majority Senate will almost certainly vote to acquit the president.

“To me, it seems like the facts are largely undisputed; I don’t know what additional witnesses will tell us,” Cornyn said of Bolton. “We know what the facts are, and the question is whether the facts meet the constitutional standard of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’”

NEIL CAVUTO: If Trump did tell John Bolton that there was a relationship between Biden investigation & aid to the country, that wouldn't be enough for you want to look into this more?@JohnCornyn: "No ... presidents always leverage foreign aid." pic.twitter.com/VgYM2fHT6i

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 28, 2020

Trump’s lawyers have continued to assert that Trump had “done nothing wrong” and was genuinely interested in combating corruption in Ukraine when he directed that nearly $400 million in security assistance and a White House meeting with its president be withheld as he pushed the new government to announce probes of Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company when his father was vice president.

The president’s lawyers have said that House Democrats didn’t provide any firsthand witnesses or direct evidence to prove their charges that Trump abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his potential rival in the 2020 presidential election and then obstructed Congress to cover it up.

Bolton, a combative conservative and a hawk on national security, declined a House invitation to testify but subsequently said he would do so at the Senate trial if subpoenaed. However, the White House issued a blanket order blocking officials and documents, calling the impeachment process illegitimate.

NEW POLL: 75 percent of Americans, including 49 percent of Republicans, support new witnesses in impeachment trial https://t.co/XkAluOCvFM pic.twitter.com/bRf2C2Grsv

— The Hill (@thehill) January 28, 2020

The Bolton allegations have fractured the largely united front that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had maintained. Several mostly moderate Republicans who had been open to calling witnesses have now become more so.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, made an impassioned speech during a party lunch Monday arguing for Bolton to be called, leading to a direct attack from colleague Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga. Afterward, Romney told reporters that “it’s increasingly likely” that there will be enough votes to subpoena Bolton.

Underscoring the chaos the Bolton report has unleashed, other once-resistant Republicans seemed to shift their position on witnesses.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the president’s closest allies in the Senate, initially opposed calls for any witnesses, whether the Bidens or Bolton. He seemed to reverse himself Monday after the Bolton reports, and Tuesday he supported a proposal by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., that Bolton’s manuscript be made available for senators to read in a classified setting known as a SCIF, or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. The idea could be viewed as a way of getting Bolton’s information to the Senate without his public testimony.

Each senator would have “the opportunity to review the manuscript and make their own determination,” Graham tweeted.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., the Senate minority leader, rejected the proposal as “absurd.”

“It’s a book,” Schumer said of Bolton’s manuscript, which is set to publish in March. “There’s no need for it to be read in the SCIF unless you want to hide something.”

Reporter: Republicans have raised your name in some of these [impeachment trial witness] conversations. Are you yourself prepared to possibly be dragged into this?

Schiff: Well, I can tell you what my testimony is. He's guilty. And he should be impeached https://t.co/cBNCn0HaJh pic.twitter.com/4Iym0ynflZ

— POLITICO (@politico) January 28, 2020

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., questioned Bolton’s motivations for wanting to testify, and the timing of the leak. “Democrats have spent a lot of time imagining what the president’s motives are,” Paul said. “Someone ought to spend some time imaging what John Bolton’s motives are other than making millions of dollars to trash the president.” And Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., quipped, “I’m sure Mr. Bolton would rather I’d bought the book.”

Other Republican senators indicated they would continue taking their cue from the president’s team. Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, pushed unproved theories that the Bidens engaged in corruption in Ukraine. Kenneth W. Starr, the prosecutor whose four-year investigation ultimately led to the impeachment of Democratic President Bill Clinton, claimed that the impeachment process itself is being abused for political ends.

As Trump’s defense team wraps up, the war over witnesses is likely to be reflected in senators’ written questions to the president’s lawyers and the Democratic House managers. They have up to 16 hours on Wednesday and Thursday for questions, which will go back and forth between Republicans and Democrats, to be read aloud by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., the Senate minority whip, said he had whittled his nearly 30 questions down to nine. Democratic leaders have collected draft questions to “avoid duplication and pick the ones in sequences that make sense in terms of delivering a message,” he said. Republicans are expected to coordinate their questions in a Tuesday evening meeting.

Several questions are expected about Bolton, with Republicans focusing on why the House didn’t push harder to get his testimony. Both Republicans and Democrats have also suggested they have questions about Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, who was central to the dealings in Ukraine.

“I want to confirm that Rudy Giuliani was working personally for the president and not on behalf of the United States of America,” said Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala.

WATCH: "If a president can, at will ..., get foreign leaders to interfere in our elections and Americans no longer believe that it's the American people solely who decide who wins elections, our democracy is eroded in a very dramatic way," Sen. Chuck Schumer tells @JudyWoodruff. pic.twitter.com/nDVoBECPIm

— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) January 28, 2020

It remains unclear what sort of agreement Republicans and Democrats could reach on calling witnesses, with additional testimony carrying risks for both sides. Many Republicans have said they would agree to calling Bolton only if the Bidens are also subpoenaed, while Democrats say they won’t be any part of any such “trade,” because the Bidens are irrelevant to the charges against Trump.

“I’ll make a prediction: (There will) be 51 Republican votes to call Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, the whistleblower,” Graham warned. “If people want witnesses, we’re going to get a lot of witnesses.”

Durbin called the idea of bargaining over testimony — “‘Well, we’ll give you one material witness for one relevant witness’” — “baloney.”

"What they're prepared to do, is to come up with a political response that they feel gives them cover. So expect many other Senators in the coming hours and days to adopt a position similar to what Senator Toomey said yesterday..." - @costareports w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/ZBdWfwTc11

— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) January 28, 2020

Agreeing to call Biden in exchange for Bolton would make Democrats “complicit” in Trump’s original scheme to smear Biden, said Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., argued Tuesday morning against any witnesses. “When you open the door a little you’ll never satiate the appetite that House managers have for witnesses,” Cramer said. “It’s as though they want to go fishing in the United States Senate and they’re going to fish until they catch one.”

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