House Democrats approve rules for debate on articles of impeachment

Bart Jansen | USA TODAY

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WASHINGTON – Following a day of deliberation, the House Rules Committee voted along party lines to pass rules governing the floor debate about whether to impeach President Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., introduced the rules, which allow for six hours of debate on the articles of impeachment, which will be voted on and argued separately.

Under the rules, the Judiciary Committee will determine which member speaks, and the rules also allow for a resolution appointing impeachment managers to be introduced Wednesday during the floor debate.

The Rules Committee voted down an amendment from Rep. Tom Cole, R-Ok., the top Republican on the committee, that would have allowed for 12 hours of debate.

Democrats also voted down another amendment that could have allowed Republicans to delay impeachment proceedings by introducing procedural amendments.

As proceedings concluded, Cole applauded the “fair, civil” proceedings of the Rules Committee and applauded the chairman even though he opposed impeachment.

“We clearly disagree,” Cole said, "But you allowed everybody to have their say.”

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said impeachment will “define our democracy from here on out.”

“For me, I will leave here today with a clear conscience,” McGovern said.

The committee meeting, which started Tuesday morning, lasted until after 9 p.m., as lawmakers discussed issues such as how long the floor debate should last, which committees should have members debate on the floor and whether proposals for amendments should be allowed. The floor debate, which will be only the third time in history that the chamber debates impeachment recommendations from the Judiciary Committee against a president, is expected Wednesday and Thursday.

The Judiciary Committee recommended two articles of impeachment Friday, after party-line votes with Democrats supporting the charges and Republicans opposing them. The debate in the Rules Committee and on the floor could be just as polarized.

The full House is expected to convene at 9 a.m. Wednesday to begin their debate on the articles of impeachment.

Previous live coverage:

House Democrats propose six hours of debate for articles of impeachment

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., introduced the rules of debate for tomorrow's impeachment vote, which would allow for six hours of debate on the articles of impeachment.

The rules also allow for a resolution to name impeachment managers to be introduced tomorrow.

The Rules Committee voted down an amendment from Rep. Tom Cole, R-Ok., the top Republican on the committee, that would have allowed for twelve hours of debate.

McCarthy expects GOP to stay united

House Republican leaders said they expected to stay united ahead of Wednesday’s vote on articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., denounced the impeachment as the “weakest, thinnest, and fastest impeachment in American history.”

He said it was “not hard at all” to whip Republican members.

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said the “only bipartisan vote tomorrow will be against impeachment.”

Asked about Rep. Jeff Van Drew’s, D-N.J., pending party change, McCarthy noted the rarity of a move from the majority to the minority and said Van Drew “will make a public announcement sometime soon.”

“We welcome Congressman Van Drew,” he added.

Proposed amendment targets Obama, Holder and Fast and Furious investigation

At least one Rules amendment seems likely to be proposed. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., has had an amendment pending all day. The amendment seeks to note within the articles that if the same standard of obstruction of Congress had applied to former President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder, they too would have been vulnerable to impeachment for defiance of a lawful subpoena from the committee then known as Oversight and Government Reform related to the Fast and Furious investigation.

Pelosi: 'The facts have made clear that the President abused his power'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told lawmakers in a letter Tuesday that they would exercise one of their most solemn powers Wednesday when the chamber votes on articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

She didn’t mention Trump’s letter in her note. But she said the House needed to act to support and defend the Constitution.

“If we do not act, we will be derelict in our duty,” Pelosi said.

She urged lawmakers to participate in the debate with “great seriousness and solemnity.”

“Very sadly, the facts have made clear that the President abused his power for his own personal, political benefit and that he obstructed Congress as he demanded that he is above accountability, above the Constitution and above the American people,” Pelosi said. “In America, no one is above the law.”

Trump asks Pelosi not to hold vote in 'partisan impeachment crusade'

President Donald Trump sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter Tuesday expressing his “most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade” and urging her not to hold a vote on charges against him as early as Wednesday.

“This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history,” Trump said.

The president said the articles of impeachment accusing him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are not recognizable under any standard constitutional theory. The president said more due process was provided during the Salem witch trials than during this inquiry, which he called “nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup.”

“They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever,” Trump said. “You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!”

McConnell: ''I'm not an impartial juror.'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to answer questions from reporters about the timing of a Senate trial or whether witnesses would be called.

McConnell said 51 senators, a simple majority “will be able to make that decision, whether we go down the path of another trial.”

Asked if he would be an impartial juror, he replied, “I’m not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There’s not anything judicial about it.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, a moderate Republican, whether she thought there needed to be witnesses in a Senate trial, told reporters, “Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer need to figure out if they can come up with a proposal that we, the Senate, can move forward to support.”

McConnell rejects Democrats’ proposal for Senate trial

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., rejected a proposal raised by Senate Democrats over the weekend that asked for four key witnesses to appear as part of President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.

McConnell, speaking from the Senate floor Tuesday, was responding to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who outlined a proposal for how the trial should run and start the week of Jan. 6.

“By any ordinary legal standard, what House Democrats have assembled appears to be woefully inadequate to prove what they want to allege,” McConnell said, explaining why he opposed calling for the witnesses. “‘The Senate is meant to act as judge and jury. To hear a trial. Not to re-run the entire fact-finding investigation because angry partisans rushed sloppily through it.”

In Schumer’s letter to McConnell on Sunday, he asked that four key witnesses who were issued subpoenas and who did not cooperate with House impeachment investigators: Mick Mulvaney, acting White House chief of staff; John Bolton, former national security advisor; Robert Blair, senior advisor to the acting White House chief of staff; and Michael Duffey, associate director for national security, Office of Management and Budget.

The four are believed to have information that is key in deciding whether Trump withheld about $400 million in military aid and a key White House meeting from Ukraine in exchange for the country working on two investigations that were helpful to him politically, allegations that led to two articles of impeachment.

“We don’t create impeachments. We judge them,” McConnell said. “The House chose this road. It is their duty to investigate. It is their duty to meet the very high bar for undoing a national election.”

Rules Committee begins hashing out impeachment vote

The House Rules Committee met Tuesday to debate rules for the full House debate Wednesday on the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., opened the meeting by criticizing Trump for soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election from Ukraine, which was the foundation for the articles of impeachment. McGovern said the behavior rose to the level of impeachment.

The top Republican on the panel, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, said the debate would feature a lot of disagreement. He called the impeachment inquiry flawed and partisan from the start.

After the opening speeches, the panel was expected to hear from Judiciary Committee members describing the two articles of impeachment accusing Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., missed the meeting because of an unspecified family emergency. In his place, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., was set to present the committee’s findings. The panel’s top Republican, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, was also set to speak.

Raskin responds to Republican complaints

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who is a member of both the Judiciary and Rules committees, replied to several standard Republican complaints against the impeachment effort.

Republicans criticized the lack of specific charges such as bribery or extortion in the articles of impeachment. But Raskin said Republicans have argued from the start that Justice Department policy forbids charging the president with crimes while in office. Raskin said Republicans also argued that the articles of impeachment were too vague.

Raskin called the Republican strategy: “Heads you win, tails I lose.”

Republicans have also said the Judiciary Committee called no fact witnesses before drafting the articles. Raskin said three panels – Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight and Reform – called 17 fact witnesses.

Then the Judiciary Committee worked from a report by the three committees. Raskin compared the process to Republicans working from independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s report in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

“We’re following the exact same pattern as happened there,” Raskin said.

Trump and congressional Republicans have also argued that the Democratic inquiry was unfair because the president couldn’t cross-examine witnesses before the three panels. Raskin said all of the testimony was essentially unrefuted and uncontradicted.

Rules Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., asked Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on Judiciary, whether it was improper to ask a foreign government to investigate a U.S. citizen. Trump asked his Ukraine counterpart to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

“There was nothing wrong with the call,” Collins said.

The accusations against Trump were described in a 658-page Judiciary report. The first article charged that the president abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his domestic political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, which would have interfered in the 2020 presidential election. The second article charged that Trump obstructed the Congressional impeachment inquiry into his conduct by directing administration officials and agencies not to cooperate with the inquiry.

Trump has said he was justified in urging Ukraine to fight corruption. He called the inquiry a partisan "witch hunt" that his administration defied because it was biased.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Oversight and Reform Committee, has argued that the president has a strong case. Jordan noted that Trump met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and released $391 million in military aid without Ukraine announcing any investigations in Biden.

"The facts are on the president’s side," Jordan said. "This is a ridiculous case that the Democrats are bringing."