LIVE: House Managers Formally Make Case to Remove Trump at Impeachment Trial
House managers have 24 hours over three days to present opening statements.
On Tuesday, the Senate debated and voted on rules for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
The trial resumes today at 1 p.m. ET when the House managers will formally present their case to remove Trump from office.
Day 3
These are the decorum guidelines:
The Senate broke for its first break after Schiff spoke for over two hours. Schiff promised the Senate he will provide them with “remarkably consistent evidence of President Trump’s corrupt scheme and cover-up.” More:
Mr. Schiff laid out the chronology of the Democrats’ case, playing video clips of administration officials who testified in the House investigation about the president’s push for investigations and hold on nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. The aid was later released amid bipartisan pressure in Congress.
In his presentation, Mr. Schiff also took on another aspect of the impeachment fight, arguing that a president can be impeached for an action that doesn’t amount to a criminal offense. Many of Mr. Trump’s allies disagree, saying an abuse-of-office charge amounts to overreach by Congress.
The House managers will present their opening statements for two hours. The Senate will take a recess “when there is an appropriate break time between presenters.”
The Senate chaplain opened it up with a prayer:
“Sovereign God, author of liberty, we gather in this historic chamber for the solemn responsibility of these impeachment proceedings. Give wisdom to the distinguished Chief Justice John Roberts, as he presides. Lord, you are all powerful and know our thoughts before we form them. As our lawmakers have become jurors, remind them of your admonition in first Corinthians 10:31 — that whatever they do should be done for your glory. Help them remember that patriots reside on both sides of the aisle, that words have consequences and that how something is said can be as important as what is said. Give them a civility built upon integrity that brings consistency in their beliefs and actions. We pray in your powerful name, amen.”
Recap
The Senate will allow each side to take 24 hours over three days for opening statements.
The GOP-controlled chamber rejected “efforts by Democrats to subpoena documents the Trump administration has refused to turn over.”
The chamber “also rejected efforts to subpoena current and former Trump administration officials to testify, including former national security adviser John Bolton and current acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.”
[Featured image via YouTube]
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Comments
One of the changes made yesterday to the rules resolution was that the Senate would accept the House’s evidence subject to objections for hearsay. I’m curious to see when that caveat comes into play? Is it likely to be raised during opening arguments? Would the House have enough material to fill 3 days without hearsay?
Wake me up when this nonsense is over.
If the House prosecutors are forced to put on a case without relying on hearsay, the whole thing will be over by Thursday morning, with time for everybody to have two scoops of ice cream and an interview.
Hell, it would be over 10 minutes after start, and that only if they didn’t speak for 10 minutes.
>>> Would the House have enough material to fill 3 days without hearsay? <<<
I'd like a tally of today's WH objections to hearsay.
White House attorneys claim – and rightly so – that Schiff manufactured evidence. Isn't time to prove those claims? Or will Schiff walk away from the impeachment sham with his dignity intact? Because, for me, that dog don't hunt.
WH lawyers need to be far more aggressive.
I’d like to see them be more aggressive too. But I understand that there’s a rule for absolutely everything, and rules for maintaining an appearance of politeness and decorum seem to be above all of them. I’m genuinely unsure of what the rules allow each side to say at what points in the process. It very well could be that each side is required to sit quietly and listen to the other, no matter how far afield of legal ethics and rules of evidence they stray.
I would really like to see a more interactive question and answer like the British Parliament engages in. It’s odd that the Senate claims to be the greatest deliberative body in the world when they don’t really deliberate, they just speechify. Uninterrupted hours of untested and untestable claims doesn’t lend itself to deliberating.
That’s what their 24 hours are for. All we’ve heard is opening statements, followed by only prosecutor arguments, as the rules specified.
It does seem curious that this is happening when Trump is on the world stage? Seems to happen everytime he is doing something important…happens so often it cant be mere chance I reckon.
Who was it that said:
“The are no coincidences.”
Wow! I would pay for tickets to see this read during the impeachment hearings.
If you want to know the story, the whole story of the whistleblower attempted coup plot, Read This Article. I am still shaking my head.
–Paul Sperry: Whistleblower overheard | Power Line
–https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/paul-sperry-whistleblower-overheard.php
All these knuckle draggers have done is complain about the HOSUE needs a fair trial. HEY, LOSERS a fair trial is for the defendant not the accuser.
Hope they “Drop a House” on those false accusers.
I will be ignore these 24 hours. However, when the President’s Team takes the floor, I will tune in.
I want to thank my LI colleagues for doing the viewing I won’t do.
Pretty much the same here. Listening to the House prosecutors drone and blather is good for about ten to twenty minutes before they start repeating themselves.
(FYI: On the title of the blog post – It’s perfectly fine. This is less of a trial and more of a trail of slime from the House prosecutors who have no problem throwing out every kind of unsubstantiated accusations and slander on their quixotic quest.)
I think the key takeaway from the House managers presentation so far is how incredibly boring this it. Nobody is watching this garbage except a few political junkies, nobody is paying any attention to this nonsense at all.
We’re already at the “lets just go through the motions and get this over with” stage.
Yes,same here. The new Schweizer book is a better way to spend these hours. Well a few of the hours anyway. It is a quick read.
Mary,
Headline spelling *Trial
Please change if possible, it will be a search term.
And, thanks for the info.
Mary meant trail … a trail to the top of a cliff, and we’re waiting for all the dems to follow Adam Schitt and jump off!
Just like a bunch of demmings…..
Er…..Lemmings…..
That works, too.
I never thought I’d feel sorry for a senator. But listen to this pile of horsepucky for 3 days? I feel sorry for the handful of actual American senators that are forced to listen.
Senator Rand Paul
Verified account @RandPaul
The more we hear from Adam Schiff, the more the GOP is getting unified against this partisan charade!
https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/1220044346373877761
Check out the response to RP’s tweet:
Adam Parkhomenko
Verified account @AdamParkhomenko
2h hours ago
Replying to @RandPaul
The more I hear from you, the more I think your neighbor is a hero.
And this is why we’ll never give up our guns.
schiff reminds me of a door to door vacuum salesman. He has a pretty little suitcase full of dirt, debris and trash. He comes in and dumps it all over your carpet before you realize what his spiel is all about. Then you tell him your power has been out all day. He tips his hat and slowly backs out your front door, leaving you with his mess.
Mary, just a minor criticism. The House hasn’t ‘made’ a formal case to remove Trump, they have only ‘presented’ a case. Your headline assumes their position has been accepted.
We good?
Hey RL – are “opening remarks” really about making the case, or, is it just fanfare for the case they hope to make when the trial changes gears to the evidentiary (?) phase?
What I’ve seen so far from the democrats reminds me of a carnival barker … 😉
Who in the world would think their best option was to have Schiff droning on for hours? Rhetorical, I guess.
Schiff.
It’s surreal how lame and corrupt the GOP is, to allow a dirtbag like schiff to carry on in the senate.
Vote out the establishment. PDJT showed the way. Just pick previously successful tougj people, so they don’t fold like mia love or romney.
Good for a laugh
https://mobile.twitter.com/DanScavino/status/1220072588799442944?s=20
I have seen so little push back from the Presidents team
You don’t win by handing out candy
Where’s Parton when you need him?
A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.
And Roberts? STFU you slime
I think Schiff is a screwball, and I think he is on drugs of some sort. This is really amateur hour. Like sending in the clowns to do the high wire trapeze act. Schiff and Nadler would not survive the morning session in a real trial before sanctions.
Adam Schiff’s anti-Trump ‘whistleblower’ who triggered impeachment, overheard in 2017 discussing with other “How to ‘Take Out’ Trump, Report Shows
https://newsthud.com/ukraine-whistleblower-heard-discussing-how-to-take-out-trump-report-shows/
Thank God the networks have stopped per-empting the soap operas for this crap.
Hell, they’ve been “making their case” since the start. Mark Levin notes multiple times that they have violated the Senate rules in that fashion from the start.