Over a month after Trump was impeached on the House floor, the Senate trial will begin on Tuesday, determining if the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress charges passed by the House stick, culminating in the removal of the president. And though the result of the Constitutional procedure is all but determined, the process is anything but, as new information continues to be unveiled and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposes ground rules at the last minute. Below is everything you need to know to tune into the second-ever televised impeachment trial.
How and when to watch.
The trial will begin at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, and will be available to stream on C-SPAN and PBS NewsHour’s YouTube channel. Unfortunately for impeachment completists, the first week of the trial will run through Saturday, and the second week will take place from Monday through Saturday, with 1 p.m. start times throughout.
What will day one look like?
Day one is expected to run past 6 p.m. as Democrats attempt to change Mitch McConnell’s organizing resolution — the details of the trial not established in the Constitution or in the Senate’s rules.
Each party — via the Democrats’ impeachment managers and the President’s defense team — will have an hour to debate the resolution, after which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will propose an amendment to the plan. The parties will then have another hour each for debate, followed by a vote with simple majority needed for the amendment to pass.
Who will argue the cases for and against impeachment?
Senators are not allowed to speak at the trial, so expect some familiar faces from the House and from Trump-world to take the spotlight for the next week. Impeachment managers arguing for the removal of the president include House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler; Chairman of the Democratic Caucus Hakeem Jeffries; Judiciary member Zoe Lofgren; Judiciary and Intelligence member Val Demmings; and Judiciary member Jason Crow. The president’s defense team includes White House counsel Pat Cipollone; Trump’s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow; constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz; former members of the Clinton prosecution Ken Starr and Robert Ray; and Trump lawyers Pam Boni and Jane Raskin.
McConnell’s late-breaking Monday news.
On Monday, CNN obtained a copy of Mitch McConnell’s four-page organizing resolution, in which the majority leader appears prepared to rush through the trial as quickly as possible — a timeline that is consistent with the wishes of the president’s legal team. According to the resolution, House impeachment managers and Trump’s attorneys will both have 24 hours over two days for opening arguments, meaning that the first two days of the trial will run deep into the night if Schumer is unable to convince a few Republicans to vote for his revision of the plan. Democrats rejected the document as an effort to “conceal the President’s misconduct in the dark of night,” a literal description if the first week of the trial goes until one in the morning.
Under the current plan, following opening arguments, senators will have 16 hours to question the prosecution and the defense, with four hours of subsequent debate. After that, the Senate will vote on calling other witnesses — far later in the process than Democrats anticipated.
Read the full resolution below:
