Seven House members will argue the case against President Trump.
Welcome back to the Impeachment Briefing. The managers have been selected, the articles have been transferred, and the trial is on. |
- On a day full of choreographed symbolism, the House of Representatives voted 228 to 193 to send the Senate its impeachment articles against President Trump, formally adopting them and approving the managers who will function as prosecutors in the trial.
- Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, signed the articles in what’s called an engrossment ceremony, before the seven managers, all members of the House, walked them in a leather case across the Capitol to the Senate in a televised procession. Upon arrival in the Senate chamber, the House clerk announced a “message” from the House, before announcing the vote adopting the articles.
- A Senate official then marched toward Chuck Grassley, the Senate president pro tempore, to formally deliver the articles. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, rose to announce a series of resolutions that are the first steps of the trial, which officially starts tomorrow but won’t begin in earnest until next Tuesday.
- We also learned today that the trial, which some Senate leaders have predicted could last three to five weeks, may take on a lot of unexpected drama. Susan Collins, a centrist Republican senator from Maine, said today that Mr. McConnell would include language in the Senate’s impeachment rules allowing a vote on whether to subpoena witnesses or new documents.
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 | | Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
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Ms. Pelosi oversees the most diverse caucus in the history of the House of Representatives, which served as a guiding principle in how she chose her team of prosecutors. The group features several lawyers, a former police chief, three women, two African-Americans and one Latina. |
There are familiar and obvious names — Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler — but also figures heavily involved in Democratic committee work who have a less visible television presence, such as Val Demings. |
And Ms. Pelosi surprised with some freshmen: Jason Crow and Sylvia Garcia, both of whom represent elements of the electoral wave that gave the House back to the Democrats in 2018. |
Above all, Ms. Pelosi said she looked for people in the Democratic caucus fluent as litigators. “The emphasis is on comfort level in the courtroom,” Ms. Pelosi said at a morning news conference. |
Here’s a brief look at who they are. |
1. Hakeem Jeffries of New York: The chairman of the House Democratic Caucus is the highest-ranking Democrat on the team, seen by many as Ms. Pelosi’s successor as speaker. Mr. Jeffries is also one of the party’s most skilled messengers, as likely to quote from the Bible as he is from 1990s hip-hop lyrics. [Read more.] |
2. Sylvia Garcia of Texas: Ms. Garcia, one of the first two Latina congresswomen from Texas, is a member of the Judiciary Committee and a former Houston judge. [Read more.] |
3. Jerry Nadler of New York: Mr. Nadler oversaw the second half of the impeachment inquiry, as members of his Judiciary Committee heard the evidence gathered by the Intelligence Committee and approved the two articles of impeachment. [Read more.] |
4. Adam Schiff of California: The chairman of the Intelligence Committee was the early face of impeachment for the Democrats, conducting charged witness hearings and leading the fact-finding portion of the inquiry. [Read more.] |
5. Val Demings of Florida: Though relatively new to Congress, Ms. Demings has experience on both the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. But she is perhaps best known for a question she asked during a hearing of Robert Mueller, which prompted the reticent prosecutor to say that Mr. Trump had not been truthful in his dealings with the special counsel investigation. [Read more.] |
6. Zoe Lofgren of California: Ms. Lofgren is the impeachment veteran of the team: She was a member of the Judiciary Committee in 1998 when it approved articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and as a young law student in 1974, she helped the committee draft its Watergate charges against President Richard Nixon. [Read more.] |
7. Jason Crow of Colorado: A former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Crow is a first-term member who flipped a Republican-held seat in 2018 and has quickly emerged as a leading voice on national security. [Read more.] |
Around noon tomorrow, the seven House managers will enter the Senate chamber and read aloud the articles of impeachment. |
Some time later, Chief Justice John Roberts will walk from the Supreme Court to the Senate, where he will preside over the trial. Senator Grassley will administer an oath to do “impartial justice” to Chief Justice Roberts, who will then administer the same oath to all 100 senators. |
Senate rules dictate that Mr. Trump must be summoned and given time to answer the charges against him. His response will most likely come in written form, and could take several days. |
The Senate is then expected to break for the holiday weekend and reconvene next Tuesday, when the trial will begin in earnest. |
- Evidence released by House Democrats last night offered new details on efforts by Rudy Giuliani and his associates, including text messages that suggested they were monitoring the movements of Marie Yovanovitch, then the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. The materials also contained a letter by Mr. Giuliani requesting, with Mr. Trump’s “knowledge and consent,” a meeting with the president of Ukraine.
- Senior Democrats who led the House impeachment inquiry said the new records underscored the need for senators to demand additional evidence at trial. The documents, they said in a statement, “demonstrate that there is more evidence relevant to the president’s scheme, but they have been concealed by the president himself.”
- “It’s the fourth quarter. The game is close. And you are benched.” That’s how my colleague Stephanie Saul described the predicament facing the Democratic senators running for president, who could lose out on crucial days of campaigning in early primary states because of the impeachment trial, which will lock them in their seats.
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