The Daily - The Impeachment Trial Begins

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

The impeachment trial of President Trump begins this morning. Today, we answer all of your questions about what will happen next — including how it will work and what is likely to happen. Guest: Nicholas Fandos, who covers Congress for The New York Times.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: The House’s long-anticipated vote to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate fell largely along party lines, setting the stage for what promises to be a fiercely partisan trial.Here’s a step-by-step guide to the process.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. Today, the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump begins this afternoon in the Senate. Nick Fandos on how it will work. It's Thursday, January 16th. Nick Fandos, describe the past 48 hours inside the Capitol. How does it start?

So it starts on Tuesday morning when Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who for close to a month now has been withholding the articles of impeachment against President Trump from the Senate, goes down into the basement of the Capitol for a private meeting with all House Democrats. And the Speaker walks in and says, guys, finally, the day is here. I'm ready to move forward. Our break has accomplished what we wanted it to. Additional evidence has come out over the course of this four weeks. We're going to vote tomorrow on Wednesday to name the team that will prosecute the case against President Trump and finally move this over to the Senate. case against President Trump and finally move this over to the Senate. And so that was the state of affairs for most of Tuesday afternoon. But then, kind of out of the middle of nowhere... We've got very big breaking news tonight. On the eve of the House vote to send President

Donald Trump's articles of impeachment over to the Senate, the House Intelligence Committee, that committee just released an incredibly incriminating cache of documents from Rudy Giuliani's indicted associate, Lev Parnas. House Democrats released a new tranche of evidence that they had just gotten in recent days from Lev Parnas, who was obviously intimately involved in President Trump's attempts to pressure Ukraine to help dig up dirt on his political opponents. So basically new evidence in an impeachment case after the impeachment has been completed. That's right. Here was what seems to be meaningful new evidence from a key player in this drama pouring forward. And what exactly is in these documents from Parnas? So there were three things that stood out immediately to us as interesting.

One was a letter from Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, to the new president of Ukraine asking for a meeting. Giuliani writing, quote, I have a specific request in my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump. And with his knowledge and consent, I request a meeting with you this upcoming Monday or Tuesday. For the first time in that letter, we saw Giuliani putting down on paper that his client, Donald Trump, knew what he was up to and had sanctioned it. And that ties the president even more closely to everything that Giuliani was doing in Ukraine. even more closely to everything that Giuliani was doing in Ukraine. The second piece that stood out were text messages between Parnas and a former Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Joe Biden and wanted the American ambassador to Ukraine, remember Marie Yovanovitch, out of the

way. And what these messages seem to show is a kind of bargaining that's going on that the prosecutor will help Giuliani and Parnas and their team dig up the dirt they want if they help get this American ambassador out of the way. Now, this would suggest that there's a closer tie between the removal of Yovanovitch from her post, which President Trump eventually brings about last spring, and the campaign to dig up dirt on his political opponents. Now, the third thing are notes on stationery by Parnas from the Ritz-Carlton in Vienna that mention trying to get the new president of Ukraine to publicly announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. And this is what Democrats say the president was after the whole time. And the notes suggest that Parnas, the guy working with the president's personal lawyer, was trying to get that done for him. And Nick, what do these three revelations really tell us about the larger picture of the impeachment?

Each of these has its own significance for the larger investigation. The letter from Giuliani shows very clearly that he was keeping President Trump in the loop and working for the president. The text messages show that they were working to try and get damaging information on Joe Biden. And the notes suggest further that they wanted to do that by getting Ukraine to publicly announce an investigation into the Bidens that would smear them, so to speak. And so, though these don't significantly change the shape of the case as we've understood it, they make it a lot harder to argue that it didn't happen. And in that sense, they go a long way in strengthening the Democrats' case. And what do you make of the timing of the release of these?

Literally the night before the House is going to vote to send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate. Whether by design or by accident, this was terrifically helpful for the House and for the team of prosecutors that are about to go over and try and make their case in the Senate. How so? Well, Speaker Pelosi withheld the articles of impeachment for a month to try and gain leverage to push the Senate to call new witnesses and evidence in their trial. And so the timing of this couldn't have been better to make the argument that, hey, there's compelling new evidence out there to be had and it won't be that hard to get, senators. If you don't want to hear from new witnesses, if you don't want to call the country to try and get as much material as they can to make this weighty decision. And on top of that, because this evidence has now all been submitted into the record before the articles are sent over to the Senate, they can automatically be incorporated into the trial.

OK, so what happens next? Good morning, everyone. It's a very important day for us. So Wednesday morning, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as expected, convenes a news conference in the Capitol, and she arrives with seven Democratic lawmakers in tow. Because today is the day that we name the managers, we go to the floor to pass the resolution to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

The team that she's about to introduce who will prosecute the House's case in the Senate. But first, she takes a quick chance to spike the football. There have been comments about, when are we going to send the articles over? To basically say, hey, I've taken a bunch of heat for this strategy to delay. The Republicans have been beating me up left and right. Time has been our friend in all of this because we've yielded incriminating evidence, more truth into the public domain. But you saw what happened with Lev Parnas last night, right? That validated what I was talking about.

This is why I did what I did. So now you get it, basically. And we wouldn't be in this situation had we not waited. And from there, Speaker Nancy Pelosi turns to the lawmakers around her and begins to introduce the managers, who basically fall into three groups. The first are those that were locked for the job. Chair Adam Schiff of California. That's Adam Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee,

who oversaw the House's Ukraine investigation last fall. And Jerry Nadler, who drafted the articles of impeachment and helped build the constitutional and legal justification for the charges. The second group are respected senior lawmakers who were expected to be on the team but weren't givens. Chair Zoe Lofgren, chair of the House Committee on House Administration. Zoe Lofgren of California. This is her third impeachment in the House on the Judiciary Committee. She was a staffer back during the Nixon impeachment and on the committee

during the Clinton impeachment. Chairman Hakeem Jeffries is the chair of the House Democratic Caucus and is currently serving his fourth term in Congress. Hakeem Jeffries, he is the chairman of the Democratic Caucus and a rising star within the Democratic Party, also a member of the Judiciary Committee. Congresswoman Val Demings of Florida. And then Val Demings, who is a former police chief from Orlando, who was on both Mr. Schiff's committee and Nadler's committee and is very familiar with these facts and effective on the bench. But then there were a couple of wild cards as well. Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado was a member of the House Armed Services Committee. There was Jason Crow,

who is a freshman Democrat from Colorado. He's former military, but he hasn't been involved in the impeachment debate all that much in the House. And Sylvia Garcia. Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Who is from the Houston area.

She is a member of the Judiciary Committee, but not a particularly outspoken one. I'm very proud and honored that these seven members, distinguished members, have accepted this serious responsibility. So what does this particular group tell you about what Pelosi is trying to accomplish?

Why did she pick them all, especially the wildcards? So Pelosi stated one of her goals and she left one unstated. As you can see, the emphasis is on litigators. The emphasis is on comfort level in the courtroom. The stated goal was to try and put together a team with a lot of courtroom experience. So you have lawyers and prosecutors in Garcia. You have somebody that was part of the judicial system in Texas. She wanted a team that was going to be ready to argue this case to put together briefs in the Senate. But Pelosi's other goal here was to try and put together a team

that was regionally and ethnically diverse. So you have lawmakers from the coast, from New York and California. You have black lawmakers and Latino lawmakers, and you have folks from the middle of the country. Jason Crow, for instance, is from Colorado. Garcia is from Texas, in addition to being Latino. So she was looking to put together basically a team that looks something like the Democratic caucus and the country as a whole, rather than a set of costals or legal elites, or like the team of managers that prosecuted Bill Clinton in 1999, 13 white guys. 13 white guys.

Yes, 13 white men from the House Judiciary Committee brought the case against Bill Clinton over to the House, yeah. You know, Nick, I'm curious, is this a desirable assignment for a House Democrat, or is this a job people run from? You know, I think it's a very desirable assignment, and you need no look farther than the fact that many lawmakers put their own names forward, wrote letters to Speaker Pelosi asking to be included on this team. Because these seven Democrats are now basically going to become the face of the House's case. They will be the ones writing briefs, but more importantly, arguing on the floor of the Senate as to why President Trump's behavior warrants impeachment. And they're going to be all over TVs across the

country. There's the potential here for many of these folks for this to be a career-defining moment. You know, Lindsey Graham, who's now a very well-known member of the Senate and a confidant of the president, his career got its big boost when he was one of those 13 House managers in 1999. So this is an important and historic role. You know, there will be books written about this as well. And to be a member of that team is to have a role in potentially, at least, history. But I don't think we could be better served than by the patriotism and dedication of the managers that I am naming here this morning. Thank you all very much. Okay, so once these managers are announced, what happens after this news conference?

Pretty quickly, Pelosi and her team of seven walk upstairs to the floor of the House, the chamber where... Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 767, I now send to the desk a resolution anointing and authorizing managers for the impeachment trial of Donald John Trump. The House votes along the same party lines that it did a month ago when it approved the articles to formally appoint the managers

and bring the case to trial. On this vote, the yeas are 228, to formally appoint the managers and bring the case to trial. On this vote, the yeas are 228, the nays are 193. The resolution is adopted and without objection. And that is really the last vote that the House officially needs to take on this matter. It's now up to the managers to bring their case forward, and a Senate trial is imminent. Nick, at this point, as we're talking, it is 3.40 p.m. on Wednesday after that vote to approve the House managers and transmit the articles of impeachment.

So what is the next step? So Speaker Pelosi and the managers will reconvene now at 5 o'clock and begin basically the carefully choreographed exchange of the articles between the House and the Senate. First, the Speaker will sign the articles in what is called, as only Congress could put it, an engrossment ceremony. From there, the managers will line up with the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House and the Clerk of the House, and they will process out of the House through the old House chamber, through the rotunda of the Capitol, over to the Senate to meet the Secretary of the Senate and hand over a communication. The Senate will receive a message from the House of Representatives.

And they are essentially ready to come to trial. A message from the House of Representatives. And hand over a nicely printed copy of their articles of impeachment for the Senate. Mr. President, I have been directed by the House of Representatives to inform the Senate. The House has passed H. Res. And so then the next step is basically to start a trial, only the third such proceeding in American history,

where a president of the United States will be potentially convicted or acquitted of high crimes and misdemeanors. We'll be right back. So Nick, now that the impeachment moves from the House to the Senate, what does that process look like over in the Senate? What goes through it? So on Thursday, the trial will begin, and it starts with quite a bit more ceremony. The House impeachment managers will once again walk over from the House to the Senate, carrying their articles of impeachment. And this time, they'll enter the Senate chamber and meet the sergeant at arms, who will give a stern warning to the senators. He'll cry out, hear ye, hear ye. Now you know we're firmly in the territory of old American traditions, right? Indeed. He will warn

senators that from here on out, as long as the Senate is sitting in trial, they cannot speak, quote, on pain of imprisonment if they do. Wow. This is serious business. Senators are all expected to be in their desk and then the managers will process up into the center of the Senate and they'll read aloud their articles of impeachment. I just want to understand this. So throughout the trial, House members will be going into the Senate

and doing the talking and the senators will, under pain of imprisonment, remain absolutely mum, which is kind of an interesting situation for the senators. It is. It's a very uncomfortable situation for senators who like to do their own talking. Not only can they not speak, they won't be able to bring electronics into the chamber for hours at a time. Wow. They will have to remain seated at their desks.

When they are allowed to ask questions, they have to do so in writing. And if senators want to debate, say, a motion before a vote, what they actually do is kick out reporters and the cameras and they close the doors of the Senate and have that debate in private. So this is not a proceeding like any that I think any of us, including me covering Congress, are familiar with. It's really about the House managers and the president's defense lawyers arguing it out in front of the Senate, which serves as both kind of a judge and a jury. Just a very silent version of that. A very silent one.

Okay. So the House managers have the floor Thursday morning. That's right. And so they are introduced formally to the Senate. And the Senate summons next John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, to come over to the Senate. He takes an oath himself and then administers an oath to senators that for the duration of the trial, they swear to administer impartial justice. At that point, the Senate sends a summons to President Trump telling him formally that he is on trial in the Senate and asking for his answer. The House managers will get probably up to 24 hours to make their case spread over three or four days. The president's defense team will get a chance to do the same thing for the same amount of time.

And remember, we've yet to hear from those defense lawyers since they declined to take part in the House proceedings. And then after both sides have made their case, senators will have a chance to ask questions. And can they do that out loud this time? No, that remains in writing. They can put it on pieces of paper and the chief justice will read them aloud. Wow. But then we'll get to what may be the most interesting part of this trial, which is a debate which has already begun over whether or not to call new witnesses and compel new evidence. The prosecution and the

defense can both put forward motions to call witnesses, and senators will get an up or down vote, and a simple majority wins. So Democrats want to call a number of administration witnesses, people like John Bolton or Mick Mulvaney. They need the help of four Republicans if they want to make that happen. And if they do, if they're successful, Republicans are pledging to use their majority to try and call witnesses that may be more favorable to the president. Potentially even Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, who's at the center of these investigations that Trump and Giuliani and Parnas were looking for in Ukraine. So all of a sudden, a two or three week trial could end up lasting five or six weeks. Eventually, when senators have satisfied themselves,

they will vote either to convict or quit. But remember, you need two thirds of all senators to support conviction, to have the president convicted and removed from office. You know, I'm thinking back to what Speaker Pelosi said during her news conference, that time has been on the side of Democrats, that the delay in transmitting these articles of impeachment to the Senate and getting this trial underway there may have shifted the ground when it comes to things like calling witnesses or introducing new evidence and the contours of how this trial will unfold. Do you think that she's right?

You know, we won't know for sure for at least a couple of weeks until these votes come up. But walking around the Senate in the last few days, it certainly seems like there is a growing number of Republican senators who are open to this idea of calling witnesses who seem to recognize after four weeks of feeling intense pressure from the media and, say, from their constituents, that are supportive of the president conferring with Mitch McConnell about what witnesses they would call to counter witnesses that Democrats and the moderates wanted. You know, that seems to be a nod, an acknowledgement that the chances are going up that we're not going to end up with a speedy, narrow trial, but one that may be more unwieldy and involve more witnesses. but one that may be more unwieldy and involve more witnesses. I wonder in the end how much that really matters, because as we have talked about many times on the show, when it comes to the Senate trial, no matter how many witnesses there are,

no matter what form this trial takes, there's an overwhelming predisposition by the majority to come to a certain conclusion in this case. I will preface my answer by saying that I agree with you, particularly in an election year. The idea that a Republican-controlled Senate would pull together 67 votes to remove the president of the United States when he'll be on the ballot in November seems like a total long shot. But I think that we are in for more unexpected twists and turns than we think. You know, it's one thing for Republicans to be able to watch from afar as the House assembled this case over several months, as they voted on articles of impeachment, to dismiss it as partisan because there weren't Republican votes.

To dismiss it as rushed and having not proved the case because they haven't been up close grappling with the facts. But as it gets closer and senators have to swear this awesome oath to administer impartial justice, as they have to sit in their chairs silently without their cell phones, listening to the arguments from the House and from the White House, I think we may start to see some lawmakers, maybe the moderates, maybe they're retiring, maybe they're up for reelection in a swing state this fall, moving ever so slightly out of their partisan corners that have defied so many fights in the Trump era into the kind of ambiguous middle.

And while that may not change the outcome of this particular trial, I think it will go a long way in coloring what it looks like for the American people who, after all, in just 10 months are going to go to the ballot box themselves and be able to render their own decision about whether President Trump is fit to remain in office. Nick, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. We greatly appreciate your joining us at this White House event.

This is a very important and remarkable occasion. During a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday, President Trump signed a preliminary trade deal with China intended to open Chinese markets to more U.S. goods and protect against the theft of American trade secrets. Today we take a momentous step, one that has never been taken before with China, toward a future of fair and reciprocal trade as we sign phase one of the historic trade deal between the United States and China.

In a victory for the president, the deal leaves in place record tariffs on Chinese goods and forces China to purchase $200 billion worth of American goods within two years. Together we are righting the wrongs of the past and delivering a future of economic justice and security for American workers, farmers, and families. But the deal does little to resolve larger structural issues, such as China's practice of subsidizing key industries like solar energy and steel, importing them to the U.S., and undercutting American manufacturers. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.

See you tomorrow.