Impeachment moves into the questions period

The president’s legal team on Tuesday wrapped up three days of defense arguments in the Senate impeachment trial. On Wednesday, a new question phase will begin; it is slated to take up to 16 hours, so it is expected to stretch on through Thursday evening.

Here’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg, one of our congressional correspondents, to explain how it works and what she’ll be watching for:

Unlike regular Senate debate, where senators speak on the floor, the question-and-answer portion of the impeachment trial will feature written questions — and unscripted answers. Senators will write down their questions for either the House impeachment managers or Trump’s defense team, and will then give them to their respective party leaders. (Much of the question-writing is already being coordinated behind closed doors.) Those leaders will then submit those questions to Chief Justice John Roberts, who will read them aloud at the trial.



I’ll be looking for both sides to try to poke holes in the others’ arguments. Keir Dougall, a former federal prosecutor, floated these for-instances: Trump’s defense team has argued that unless the president commits a crime, he cannot be impeached. So Democrats might ask: “What if a president decides to simply quit coming to work? That is not a crime. Can he be impeached then?” Meanwhile, Democrats have argued that the president was trying to advance his own political agenda. So Republicans might ask: “Doesn’t every president do that? Where do you draw the line?”

Until this week, it had appeared that the trial might wrap as soon as Friday. But on Sunday night, The Times reported that the former national security adviser John Bolton’s soon-to-be-published memoir contained passages that appear to contradict key elements of Trump’s legal defense. On Tuesday, Republican leaders were working feverishly to block testimony from Mr. Bolton or other witnesses but indicated they didn’t yet have the votes to do so.

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