The Senate will convene Thursday around 1 p.m. ET for a third day in President Trump’s impeachment trial. Like Tuesday and Wednesday, news networks will cover the event with special reports and it will stream online via C-SPAN2, as well as on that TV channel.
Watch above via C-SPAN2.
The Democrats, led by House impeachment managers named by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, began laying out their arguments in favor of impeachment Wednesday and are expected to continue Thursday.
As arguments concluded Wednesday night, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said: “Tomorrow, we will go through the law, the Constitution and the facts as they apply to Article I. We’ve introduced the case, we have gone through the chronology and tomorrow we will apply the facts to the law as it pertains to the president’s abuse of power.”
The Senate debated an organizing resolution Tuesday after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office sent it to Senate offices on Monday. The resolution outlined his plan to allow House impeachment managers and Trump’s legal team to each have 24 hours split over two days for their opening arguments. CNN, which obtained the organizing resolution, pointed out that the 24 hours will be split over a four-day period in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.
In December, the House impeached Trump on charges that he abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress. The House voted on two articles of impeachment, drafted by the House Judiciary Committee, which charged the president with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
For abuse of power, the House voted 230-197; for obstruction of Congress, the House voted 229-198. The votes concluded a months-long impeachment inquiry process into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, which sought to determine whether he solicited foreign power for his own political gain. And as the inquiry unfolded, the White House’s refusal to cooperate and attempts to block witnesses from testifying amounted to obstruction of Congress, according to the articles of impeachment.
Trump revealed his legal team for the trial last Friday, which includes Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr, who first came to fame during the Clinton impeachment trial in the late ’90s. Trump is the third president to be impeached in the nation’s history and the first since Clinton was impeached in 1998 on charges of lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstruction of justice.