McConnell Sets the Stage as Trump Impeachment Trial Begins in Senate

Donald Trump’s impeachment trial began Tuesday, making him the third president in U.S. history to face possible removal from office by the Senate. He is charged with abusing his office and obstructing the House investigation of his actions.

Here are the latest developments:

Trump lawyer Pat Cipollone and lead House manager Adam Schiff began up to two hours of debate on the GOP proposal for trial rules.

Cipollone said the president’s lawyers support McConnell’s proposed trial rules, and he added that in the trial, “The only conclusion will be that the president has done absolutely nothing wrong.”

Schiff argued that McConnell’s proposed procedural rules are “completely backwards -- trial first, then evidence.”

“Although the evidence against the president is already overwhelming,” senators may never know the full extent of Trump’s wrongdoing, Schiff said.

McConnell made another change to his proposed rules, in addition to the one giving each side three days to present their case instead of two. The other change would allow House evidence to be made part of the record unless 51 senators vote to object, according to a Republican aide. Previously, the House record wasn’t set to be automatically made part of the record.

After the debate on rules, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will offer his amendment to the rules, and there will be up to two hours of debate. McConnell said he’ll then propose tabling Schumer’s amendment.

A Senate Republican leadership aide said McConnell made a last-minute change to his resolution and it now will allow three days for the defense and impeachment managers to make their 24 hours of arguments, not two.

The Senate formally opened Trump’s trial, the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history. Soon, senators will begin debating the rules proposed by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to govern the process.

Before the opening of the trial, McConnell said his resolution already has enough Republican support to be adopted and said the Senate should stay in session Tuesday until members agree to it.

“This is the fair road map for our trial,” McConnell said.

The demand from House Democrats for the Senate to call additional witnesses suggests that they ended their inquiry prematurely, without sufficient evidence to back up the claims against Trump, McConnell said.

The witnesses Democrats want to call were prohibited from participating in the House inquiry by the Trump administration. Some of them ignored House subpoenas, and the House impeachment investigators said they didn’t want to wait for a court decision to enforce those subpoenas.

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