Trump’s Senate impeachment trial

The Senate impeachment trial of President Trump kicked off at 1 p.m. Tuesday on Capitol Hill with a contentious fight over just how the case will proceed.

The Senate will convene with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts presiding and will take up Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s resolution setting the framework for the trial, which has come under withering attack from Democrats.

The Kentucky Republican on Monday released the resolution that will allow a team of House Democrats 24 hours in total over two days to make their case to senators for why Trump should be removed from office.

The White House lawyers would have the same amount of time over the next two days to present their defense of the president.

Democrats accused McConnell of trying to bring a swift end to the trial by restricting the opening arguments and not allowing a vote on witnesses or documents until after the arguments are concluded and senators submit their written questions to the two teams.

“A White House-driven and rigged process, with a truncated schedule designed to go late into the night and further conceal the President’s misconduct, is not what the American people expect or deserve,” Rep. Adam Schiff, who is leading the House prosecution team, wrote in a statement earlier Tuesday.

Trump’s legal team filed their response to the articles of impeachment Monday, arguing they are the result of a partisan political process in the Democrat-controlled House.

“The Articles of Impeachment now before the Senate are an affront to the Constitution and to our democratic institutions,” they wrote. “The Articles themselves — and the rigged process that brought them here — are a brazenly political act by House Democrats that must be rejected. They debase the grave power of impeachment and disdain the solemn responsibility that power entails.”

Source: New York Post