The impeachment trial has ended for Tuesday. The Senate will resume the trial Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. EST with more speeches from senators. The final vote on impeachment is scheduled for 4 p.m. EST on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON – Sen Susan Collins, one of only two Republicans to join Democrats in seeking testimony in the Senate trial of President Donald Trump, said Tuesday she would vote to acquit the president in a final vote on Wednesday.

Collins said key facts in the case were undisputed, including the July 25, 2019, call when Trump urged Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, which she considered “improper and in very poor judgment.”

“It was wrong for him to ask a foreign government to investigate a political rival,” Collins said. “I do not believe that the House has met its burden of showing that the president’s conduct, however flawed, warrants the extreme step of immediate removal from office.”

Collins had been considered a possible swing vote on the verdict. But no House Republicans voted to impeach Trump on Dec. 18. and no Senate Republicans have yet said they would vote to convict him.

A two-thirds majority of the Senate is necessary to convict and remove Trump from office, which is unlikely Wednesday because the chamber has 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats.

The Senate voted 51 to 49 to reject any witnesses in the trial. Collins of Maine and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, joined 47 Democrats in voting to subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton.

Collins noted that there was only one impeachment trial during the country’s first 200 years. But she was concerned about two trials in the last 21 years, for Trump and former President Bill Clinton.

“This trend reflects the increasingly acrimonious partisanship facing our nation,” said Collins, who served in the Senate during both trials. She voted to acquit Clinton.

Collins noted that the House had withdrawn a subpoena for a former national-security aide, Charles Kupperman, and didn’t issue one for Bolton because of concerns about lengthy court battles. But Collins said the House should have pursued those witnesses in court rather than rush to the Senate for trial.

“At a minimum, the House should have pursued the full extent of its own remedies before bringing impeachment charges, including by seeking the assistance of a neutral third party, the judicial branch,” Collins said. “In making these choices, the House substituted its own political preference for speed over finality.”

- Bart Jansen

Rand Paul asks question Roberts refused to read

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., used his 10 minutes of speaking time to ask the same question Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts refused to read earlier in the impeachment trial.

Standing on the Senate floor along with a floor chart displaying the question, Paul mentioned the name of an official some Republicans have speculated is the whistleblower.

“I’m not for retributions on the whistleblower. I don’t want him to go to jail, I don’t want him to lose his job,” Paul said.

“I think the question is an important one, and I think we should still get to the bottom of it,” he continued.

During the question-and-answer part of the trial on Thursday, Roberts refused to read aloud the question Paul submitted. He told the chamber, “the presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted,” and did not offer further explanation.

Without providing evidence for the claim, the question revived allegations from some Trump allies that the whistleblower “conspired” with a House committee staff member to reveal information that would lead to the president’s impeachment.

- Nicholas Wu

Senators make final cases on impeachment

Senators from both parties continued making their final cases on impeachment during Senate floor speeches on Tuesday, mostly splitting along party lines over whether to convict President Donald Trump and remove him from office, or acquit him.

Here's what some of them said:

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

Kaine said the Senate process “cannot be called a trial,” because of the “shocking refusal to allow key witnesses and documents.”

“Unchallenged evil spreads like a virus,” Kaine said in an impassioned floor speech. “We have allowed a toxic president to infect the Senate and warp its behavior.”

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.

Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the evidence presented by House managers represented “a corrupt scheme to solicit foreign interference in support of this president's reelection.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Feinstein, who had been a senator during former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, said the Senate should not take the removal of a president lightly, but said it was “clear the House Managers have proved their case.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas

Cruz said he hoped the Senate would vote in “a bipartisan way to reject these articles of impeachment, to acquit the president, and to find President Trump not guilty of the articles the House has sent over.”

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

Rounds said the history of impeachment, based on what the nation’s founders intended, did not include “maladministration” as an impeachable offense, which is what he said the House managers had alleged against Trump.

“The framers actually discussed abuse of power and rejected it,” he said.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.

Kennedy quipped that Democrats’ obstruction of Congress charge, which alleged that the Trump administration stonewalled the House’s impeachment inquiry, was not serious.

“Anyone who knows a law book from a J. Crew catalog does not take this charge seriously,” he said. “Executive privilege and testimonial immunity are well established, constitutionally based presidential and executive branch privileges that every president at one time or another has asserted.”

- Nicholas Wu

Alabama Democrat Doug Jones to announce vote Wednesday

Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., a red-state Democratic senator, said an announcement on his final vote on impeachment would come Wednesday morning, hours before the final vote takes place at 4 p.m. EST.

“I'm working on something and will make an announcement in the morning before I go to the floor,” he told reporters.

Jones said his mind had been made up and he was working on writing remarks.

- Nicholas Wu

Manchin says he's still undecided on final vote

Sen. Joe Manchin said he was still undecided on impeachment on Tuesday, telling reporters, “It’s a tough situation. It’s a tough vote."

On Monday, in a speech on the Senate floor, Manchin called for censuring Trump, saying he did not see a path for impeachment to succeed. Censuring is a formal statement of disapproval from the Senate.

Republicans have poured cold water on the idea of censuring Trump.

Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, represents a state Trump won in 2016.

- Nicholas Wu

Schumer: GOP refusing witnesses fails 'laugh test'

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Senate Republicans' refusal to call witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump “fails the laugh test.”

Schumer said the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress against Trump were “extremely serious.”

“To interfere in an election – to blackmail a foreign country to interfere in our elections – gets at the very core of what our democracy is about,” Schumer said. “If Americans believe that they don’t determine who is president, who is governor, who is senator, but that some foreign potentate out of reach can join us in our elections, that’s the beginning of the end of democracy.”

The Senate voted Friday to reject witnesses at the trial, clearing the way for a final vote Wednesday.

“I thought they made a compelling case. But even if you didn’t, the idea that that means that you shouldn’t have witnesses and documents when we’re doing something as august, as important as an impeachment trial fails the laugh test,” Schumer said. “The Republicans refused to get the evidence because they were afraid of what it would show and that’s all that needs to be said.”

- Bart Jansen

Sen. Van Hollen: not convicting Trump sends 'terrible signal'

Democrats speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday said the impeachment case against President Donald Trump meant that senators have to vote to convict and remove him from office on Wednesday.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., asked his Senate colleagues to vote to convict Trump.

“As we make this momentous decision, I implore each of my colleagues to think about the gravity of what we will do if we fail to convict this president - the message that we send to countries struggling to overcome corruption,” Blumenthal said.

“Failure to convict will send a terrible signal – that this president and any future president can commit crimes against the Constitution and the American people and get away with it,” argued Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., whose state Trump won narrowly in 2016, said the White House engaged in a “systematic and unprecedented effort to cover up the scheme” in Ukraine.

"A vote against the articles of impeachment will set a dangerous precedent, and will be used by future presidents to act with impunity,” he argued.

- Nicholas Wu

GOP senators slam impeachment during speeches

The first Republican senators to give speeches on the Senate floor Tuesday offered few surprises as they slammed the “partisan” impeachment and argued Democrats had not proven their case against President Donald Trump.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said the House managers prosecuting Trump failed to prove a case matching the “high bar” set by the nation’s founders to remove a president from office.

“Removing the president from office – and from the ballots for the upcoming election – would almost certainly plunge the country into even greater political turmoil,” he said.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was a “prophet” for predicting during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment that the bar for impeachment had been lowered so much that, “we have broken the seal on this extreme penalty.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, slammed the impeachment process as “fraught from the beginning with political aims and partisan innuendos.”

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said the managers did not prove the “allegations contained in the articles of impeachment,” and the articles did not “allege conduct that may be used for grounds of removal.”

Senators are given up to 10minutes to talk on the Senate floor about impeachment, and while most senators have publicly discussed their final impeachment vote, a handful of senators have not, including Democrats Joe Manchin, Doug Jones, and Kyrsten Sinema, and Republicans Susan Collins and Mitt Romney.

- Nicholas Wu

McConnell tells senators: 'Vote to acquit'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell attacked the House impeachment of President Donald Trump as a grave injustice and an example of “factional fever” on Tuesday.

The Kentucky Republican urged senators to acquit the president Wednesday, when the Senate impeachment trial comes to an end with a vote on whether acquit Trump or convict and remove him from office..

“We must vote to reject the House abuse of power,” McConnell said. “Vote to protect our institutions. Vote to reject new precedents that would reduce the framers’ design to rubble. Vote to keep factional fever from boiling over and scorching our republic. Vote to acquit the president of these charges.”

McConnell recited a history of Democratic antagonism to Trump that began with his election in 2016 and continued through the investigation of former special counsel Robert Mueller and the impeachment inquiry over Ukraine.

Rep. Jason Crow:Democrat reads from his children's Constitutions during the Trump impeachment trial

“It insults the intelligence of the American people that this is a solemn process reluctantly begun because of withheld foreign aid,” McConnell said. “Their position was obvious when they openly rooted for the Mueller investigation to tear our country apart.”

McConnell, who occasionally smiled and chuckled during the speech, said the article accusing Trump of obstruction of Congress was absurd because the president was simply protecting presidential powers such as executive privilege when defying subpoenas during the inquiry.

“Impeachment is not some magical constitutional trump card that melts away the separations between the branches of government,” McConnell said.

McConnell also blasted the accusation that Trump abused the power of his office, blaming the dispute on a policy disagreement over Ukraine.

- Bart Jansen

Final vote awaits senators as they state their positions

Senators are set to explain their positions on impeachment ahead of a final vote Wednesday on whether acquit President Donald Trump or remove him from office.

After House impeachment managers and Trump's defense team finished their closing arguments Monday, senators were given time to speak on the trial. Those speeches are expected to continue Tuesday. The trial resumed about 9:30 a.m. EST.

Only a handful of senators remain publicly uncommitted on their final impeachment votes, and some might use the speeches as an opportunity to explain their position to their constituents.

The speeches also come the same day Trump will give his State of the Union address. Here's what will happen:

What happens Tuesday

Starting at 9:30 a.m. ET, senators are given ten minutes of speaking time to talk on the Senate floor.

A handful of senators remain publicly undecided on the final impeachment vote, including Democratic Sens. Doug Jones of Alabama, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

What happened Monday:GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she 'cannot vote to convict' Trump

Two Republican lawmakers, Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, have also been tight-lipped about their final decision.

In a floor speech yesterday, Manchin said he was "undecided" on how he would vote but called for censuring Trump instead of impeaching him.

A motion to censure Trump would formally express the Senate’s disapproval of his actions but would not remove him from office.

The draft censure resolution, which Manchin's office provided to USA TODAY, would "condemn" Trump's conduct "in the strongest terms." But it could not be introduced until after the end of the impeachment vote on Wednesday.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who had been tight-lipped about her final decision, announced she could not vote to convict Trump in a floor speech Monday.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Murkowski called Trump’s behavior in Ukraine "shameful and wrong" but argued she "cannot vote to convict" him.

Rep. Jason Crow:Democrat reads children's Constitutions during impeachment trial

What has happened

Both sides gave their closing arguments on Monday, when Democrats urged senators to remove Trump and Republicans pushed for acquittal.

Democratic impeachment managers told senators Trump had to be removed before further misconduct was committed.

“You can’t trust this president to do the right thing, not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country," said Impeachment Manager Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., during his closing remarks.

Republicans denounced the partisanship of the impeachment and called for senators to acquit Trump and let voters decide who their next president will be in November.

“This is exactly and precisely what the founders feared,” Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow said. “This was the first totally partisan presidential impeachment in our nation’s history and it should be our last.”

How impeachment works:Pathway of the impeachment process: How it works, where we are

Contributing: Bart Jansen