Times reporters respond to your impeachment questions.
Welcome back to the Impeachment Briefing. With the Senate trial inching closer, we’re using today’s newsletter to answer questions sent in by readers. |
- Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to lawmakers that she would move next week to send impeachment articles to the Senate, a long-awaited step that would prompt just the third presidential impeachment trial in American history. She said that she would consult with House Democrats Tuesday on how to go ahead.
- The trial could begin as soon as Wednesday, based on Ms. Pelosi’s timeline. As of today, President Trump and his legal team were still sorting out who would defend him in the trial. And Ms. Pelosi continued to assemble her own team of managers to prosecute him.
- Once Ms. Pelosi finalizes the list of managers, they will be voted on, along with the sending of the articles. “I have asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to be prepared to bring to the floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate,” Ms. Pelosi wrote today.
|
In yesterday’s newsletter, we asked readers to send questions about the impeachment process. Within hours, our inbox was flooded with hundreds of responses. We read through them all, selected a few that seemed to come up frequently, and enlisted our colleagues to help answer them. |
| Who benefits more the longer this process is drawn out: the Democrats or the Republicans? |
SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, congressional correspondent: The delay has clearly helped Democrats; in the weeks since the House impeached President Trump, new evidence has emerged in the form of emails documenting the president’s decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine, and a potential witness — John Bolton, the former White House national security adviser — announced he would be willing to testify. That buttresses Democrats’ demands for documents and witnesses during the trial. |
But the delay has also benefited Republicans by allowing them to argue that impeachment cannot possibly be as urgent as Democrats have portrayed, given that they seemed in no rush to move forward. And the delay also created a kind of news vacuum, filled by the conflict with Iran, which diverted the public’s attention from impeachment. |
Bill in Mississippi asked: |
| What role does Chief Justice John Roberts play in these proceedings? Does he have any control over petitions by either side? |
And Don in San Diego asked: |
| Because Senator Mitch McConnell openly declared that he and other Republican senators will coordinate with the president’s White House lawyers in an impeachment trial, can Chief Justice Roberts bar him (and possibly others) from participating in the trial? |
ADAM LIPTAK, Supreme Court correspondent: The vice president is ordinarily the Senate’s presiding officer. But he has an obvious conflict of interest when the president’s job is at risk, so the framers of the Constitution assigned the role of presiding over presidential impeachment trials to the chief justice. Historical precedents and the Senate’s rules suggest that the chief justice’s role is largely ceremonial, as his rulings can be overturned by a majority vote. |
As for barring Mr. McConnell, the short answer is no. The thing to remember is that Chief Justice Roberts is the presiding officer in the same way that a vice president is, and a vice president can’t tell the Senate what a senator should do. The Senate itself could conceivably disqualify a senator, but that would require a majority vote. |
| Why are Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas & Co. not being forced to testify? It would be very important to know to what extent Trump was aware of their actions. |
KEN VOGEL, investigative reporter: Mr. Giuliani was subpoenaed in late September by the Democrat-controlled House Intelligence Committee, which asked him for records related to Mr. Parnas, Igor Fruman and some of his foreign business activity. He defied that subpoena, but has offered to cooperate with Republicans in the Senate, volunteering to provide Senator Lindsey Graham with evidence and witnesses that he says justifies Mr. Trump’s efforts to push the Ukrainians to pursue investigations. |
Mr. Parnas, on the other hand, has signaled that he is willing to offer potentially damaging testimony about Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump. Through his lawyer, Mr. Parnas has offered to testify to Democrats in the House, and he has convinced the court overseeing his criminal case in New York to clear him to share the contents of his iPhone with House Democrats. |
Katie from Massachusetts asked: |
| Who is most likely to be an impeachment manager, and does Nancy Pelosi pick them or does the House vote? |
EMILY COCHRANE, congressional reporter: The House will have to vote on the managers, but they will vote on a group that Speaker Nancy Pelosi picks — and she has not given any indication about who her choices are. It’s likely to be a smaller, more diverse group than the 13 white men chosen for the Clinton trial — and Representatives Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler are widely expected to be among those tapped because of their chairmanships and involvement in the investigation. |
| Do reporters get any sense of whether any Republican senators feel secretly frustrated by McConnell’s strategy? Or, are they all in? |
CARL HULSE, chief Washington correspondent: The Republican senators most frustrated with Mr. McConnell have already said so publicly, like Lisa Murkowski. The more moderate Republicans also trust that Mr. McConnell will do whatever he can to protect them during the trial. |
All of the Republicans are comfortable starting with what Mr. McConnell referred to as the Clinton trial precedent. But there are several keeping their options open on witnesses. There will be a big test vote on that at some point, and then we’ll know who’s on board. There’s a growing sense among senators I’ve talked to that there will be some witnesses. |
Garry from California asked: |
| If Trump is not removed from office this time, and if further major abuses of power or blatant corruption continue to surface, can he be impeached in the House a 2nd or 3rd or 4th time? |
MICHAEL SHEAR, White House correspondent: Yes. The Constitution does not limit the number of times that a president can be impeached, so the Democrat-led House could decide to impeach Mr. Trump again, even if he is acquitted by the Senate in the weeks ahead. |
Practically speaking, however, the president’s adversaries would likely find it difficult to muster the political will to try to impeach him a second or third time. One thing that could change that dynamic would be the makeup of Congress. If Mr. Trump is re-elected this year but Democrats take control of the Senate, it’s possible they might have more of an appetite to try again. |
Some reader questions have been edited for length and clarity. |
- Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican, said today that she’s working with a coterie of Republican senators to make sure that witnesses can be called in the impeachment trial, the Bangor Daily News reported.
- The Wall Street Journal reported that after the American drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Mr. Trump told people he was being pressured to deal with General Suleimani from Republican senators he saw as important for his impeachment trial.
- Politico looked at the ways the trial and its potential time demands are causing headaches for Democratic senators campaigning for president. Cory Booker, of those senators, told The A.P. yesterday that a trial would be a “big, big blow” to his campaign, keeping him away from Iowa before the state’s caucuses.
|
| I’m eager to know what you think of the newsletter, and what else you’d like to see here. Email your thoughts to briefing@nytimes.com. Did a friend forward you the briefing? Sign up here. |
| You can unsubscribe through the link at the bottom of this email, and it won’t affect your regular Morning Briefing subscription. |
