House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Wednesday that Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff will be among the seven impeachment managers who will press the House’s case against President Trump during a Senate trial.

“Today is an important day,” Pelosi said during a news conference on Capitol Hill with the seven lawmakers. “This is about the Constitution of the United States.”’

Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Schiff, the head of the House Intelligence Committee, played crucial roles in the House’s impeachment inquiry into Trump last fall.

Others on the team include Reps. Zoe Lofgren of California, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Val Demmings of Florida, Jason Crow of Colorado and Sylvia Garcia of Texas.

The House managers are expected to personally deliver the articles to the Senate later Wednesday.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal lawyer, will lead Trump’s defense.

“The emphasis is on litigators. The emphasis is on comfort level in the courtroom. The emphasis is making the strongest possible case to protect and defend our Constitution,” Pelosi said.

Nadler said the “Senate is on trial as well as the president” as he urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to call witnesses and produce documents.

“The American people know that in a trial, you permit witnesses. You present the evidence. If the Senate doesn’t permit the introduction of all relevant witnesses and of all documents that the House wants to introduce, because the House is the prosecutor here, then the Senate is engaging in an unconstitutional and disgusting coverup,” the New York Democrat said.

Schiff echoed those sentiments, saying Pelosi’s delaying transmitting the articles to the Senate pressured senators to hold a “fair trial.”

“Do they want a fair trial — one that’s fair to the president but also fair to the American people — or are they going to participate in a cover-up?” Schiff of California asked.

The White House called the impeachment process “illegitimate” and a “sham,” and accused Pelosi of focusing on “politics instead of the American people.”

“President Trump has done nothing wrong. He looks forward to having the due process rights in the Senate that Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats denied to him, and expects to be fully exonerated. … He will continue working and winning for all Americans, while the Democrats will continue only working against the President,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

Trump tweeted during Pelosi’s news conference, saying “Here we go again, another Con Job by the Do Nothing Democrats. All of this work was supposed to be done by the House, not the Senate!”

Pelosi named the impeachment team hours before the House will vote on releasing the two articles of impeachment – charging Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for his dealings with Ukraine – to the Senate so a trial can get underway.

The speaker has been holding up delivering the articles since the House voted on Dec. 18 to try to coerce McConnell to release the framework of how a trial would be conducted, call witnesses to testify and not hold a vote to dismiss.

McConnell, speaking on the Senate floor on Wednesday, accused Pelosi and House Democrats of taking the “nation down a dangerous road.”

“If the Senate blesses this unprecedented and dangerous House process by agreeing that an incomplete case and subjective basis are enough to impeach a president, we will almost guarantee the impeachment of every future president when the House doesn’t like that person,” he said.

He told reporters on Tuesday that the trial would begin next Tuesday.

Motions require 51 votes for approval and Republicans who hold a 53-47 majority lack the number after several senators said they would oppose dismissal.

“There is little or no sentiment in the Republican conference for a motion to dismiss,” McConnell said on Tuesday. “Our members feel that we have an obligation to listen to the arguments.”

On having witnesses testify, McConnell said that issue would be taken up as the trial proceeds and noted that both Democrats and Republicans would have a list of people they’d want to testify.