Thread by @MesMitch

Mitch McConnell's poker face finally broke. After 2 hours of talking and 15 mins after senators expected a break, Schiff seems to wrap up then says "now let me turn to the second article of impeachment."

McConnell threw his hands down and made a clear "are you kidding me?" face.

@RepAdamSchiff
Schiff said several minutes ago that 10 minutes remained in his presentation. “So the end is in sight,” he added.

The White House is blasting out rapid response emails (7 in last 45 min). A sample: "President Trump Has Been Completely Transparent with the American People" and "The President’s July 25th Call Was Perfect"😡😡😡😡

@RepJerryNadler begins speaking for impeachment managers
The recess has ended, and impeachment manager Jerry @RepJerryNadler, the chairman of the House judiciary committee, has taken the Senate floor to continue presenting his side’s opening arguments.

During the recess, Senate minority leader @SenSchumer spoke to reporters and praised the performance of lead impeachment manager @RepAdamSchiff.@SenSchumer also dismissed the possibility of “trading” the testimony of Hunter Biden

the former vice president’s son, for the testimony of John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser.

“I think it’s off the table,” @SenSchumer said when asked about the potential witness swap.

Speaking on the Senate floor, impeachment manager @RepJerryNadler incorporated tweets from Trump and his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, to argue the president and his allies participated in a “smear campaign” against Maria Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine.

Impeachment manager @RepJerryNadler has finished speaking (for now), and he has ceded the Senate floor to another member of the House team, congresswoman @RepSylviaGarcia

The impeachment managers have been presenting their opening arguments for a collective three hours or so now, leaving them 21 hours to finish making their case.

Donald Trump put out 132 tweets and retweets as of 4:45 pm ET today, setting a record for the most of any single day since he became president.😂🤣

OMG!! The scariest thing just happened. A protester stormed onto the balcony while @RepJeffries was addressing the Senate. “Jesus Christ would...” he yelled, before Capitol police pulled him out.

Decorum guidelines in the Senate say: “senators should plan to be in attendance at all times during the proceedings.” But at any given time today, roughly a dozen seats have been empty - on both sides. Some senators in the cloak room, some walking in and out of the cloak room.

Some bipartisan conversations in the chamber in the last hour: @SenAmyKlobuchar sat next to @RoyBlunt and they briefly chatted. Brown walked over to Young and bent his ear. Kennedy strolled all the way over to @SenatorBennet on the Dem side and they shared a laugh

Another convention, if not an explicit rule, is that senators can’t eat, but can drink water or milk while in the chamber. @SenTomCotton seems to be making the most of it (milking it, we could say).Tom Cotton has milk. His second glass arrived at 4:34 pm, and he took a long sip.

More than five hours of hearing impeachment managers present their case against Donald Trump has not compelled Republican senators to subpoena witnesses and testimony

The impeachment brief “says the information is overwhelming, the facts are overwhelming,” said @SenJohnBarrasso

a Republican senator from Wyoming. “Then present it and let’s vote.” Speaking to reporters in the basement of the Capitol,@SenJohnBarrasso said there’s no need to consider any new evidence.😡😳😡😣

@RepAdamSchiff said he expects to continue for another two or two and a half hours💙. He has begun by reviewing what House investigators have uncovered about Guiliani’s attempts to push Ukranian officials to announce an investigation of Donald Trump’s political rivals.

@tedcruz a Republican from Texas, said he would want to hear from one additional witness: @JoeBiden’s son Hunter. “The need for the senate to hear the testimony of Hunter Biden... has become all the more relevant,” he told reporters.

But the same senators who denied the need to subpoena any additional evidence complained that there was nothing new in the impeachment managers’ case today.

Referring to ambassador Gordon Sondland’s notes of his phone call with Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine,
@RepAdamSchiff

told senators: “They’re yours for the asking.”

“Demand those notes’ Schiff said. “Demand to see the truth.”

He continued: “Maybe those notes say no quid pro quo. Maybe those notes say it’s a perfect call. I’d like to see them.”@RepAdamSchiff reviewed what House investigators do know, and read out text messages between @USAmbEU and Taylor When Taylor grew worried about why the US was

withholding congressionally-approved military assistance to Ukraine, he texted @USAmbEU
“Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” asked Taylor.

“Call me,” @USAmbEU replied.

Lead impeachment manager @RepAdamSchiff once again appealed to senators to call more witnesses — especially national security adviser John Bolton.

“What did Bolton know about the freeze in aid?” @RepAdamSchiff asked, rhetorically. “He’s there for your asking.”

@RepAdamSchiff also contested claims by Donald Trump and his allies that Ukraine never felt any pressure to announce an investigation.

“We’re to believe they felt no pressure? Folks, they’re at war, and they’re being told you’re not getting $400m in aid,” @RepAdamSchiff said. “That’s $400m of pressure.”

@RepAdamSchiff once again played a clip of Donald Trump publicly calling for Ukraine and China to investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. “Give him credit for being so obvious,” @RepAdamSchiff said of the president.

This is the second time @RepAdamSchiff has played that clip today, emphasizing that Trump’s own words are part of the case House Democrats have built against Trump.

Referring to heavily redacted documents obtained by a FOIA yesterday, @RepAdamSchiff said: “I’m sure if you could read under those redaction's, it would be a very perfect email.”

The documents, which @RepAdamSchiff held up before the Senate, were released by the White House Office of Management and Budget after the watchdog group American Oversight made a “request for directives and communications that may relate to any effort to pressure the Ukrainian

government to investigate one of President Trump’s political opponents as part of an effort to give the president an electoral advantage.”

Senate Democrats brought an amendment yesterday to subpoena the OMB, but it was voted down along party lines — as was every other effort to subpoena evidence.

One senator bowed out early: 86-year-old @SenFeinstein of California has reportedly left the Capitol. Senators are expected to remain for the entirety of arguments, but as the oldest member of the Senate @SenFeinstein may get a pass for seeing herself home an hour

the presentations are scheduled to end.

It’s unclear the extent to which the hours of presentations. Yesterday, an average of 11m viewers tuned in during afternoon hours, and more than 7.5m watched during prime time, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The Washington Post adds context:

For further perspective: the first day of the House impeachment hearings in November drew an average of 13.1 million viewers on the six networks. special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s testimony before Congress in July attracted 12.97 million

The big TV winner was Fox News, which led all networks during late afternoon and prime time on Tuesday. Its audience peaked at 3.8 million between 9 and 10 p.m.

The relatively strong audience interest belied comments from some Trump supporters that the coverage — which relied primarily on static cameras controlled by the Senate😡😣 — was “boring.”

Winding down today’s arguments, @RepAdamSchiff said the impeachment managers will be pack tomorrow to present their first article of impeachment against Donald Trump: abuse of power.

Then asked senators to consider the risks that Trump administration officials took in testifying in the impeachment inquiry. “They risked everything — their careers,” @RepAdamSchiff said. “If they could show the courage, so can we,” he told lawmakers.

Senate trial ends for the day
Senate leader Mitch McConnell said the trial will resume at 1pm ET tomorrow. He and minority leader @SenSchumer also thanked the Senate pages on the penultimate day of their term. Senators gave the pages a standing ovation.

A member of the president’s legal team tried to brush off a question about his colleague’s false claim that House Republicans were denied access to the secure area of the Capitol where closed-door interviews were held during the impeachment inquiry.

Good morning🍊 Impeachment trial enters third day The historic impeachment trial of Donald Trump enters its third day today, with Democrats continuing to build their case that Trump’s Ukraine conduct placed the very republic of the US at risk.

Democrats will continue to present their case that Trump abused his power in withholding aid to the Ukraine, then obstructed Congress.

•The Senate will convene at about 1pm to continue to hear from Democratic prosecutors, who have used roughly eight hours of their

allotted 24. Senators from both parties remained entrenched on Wednesday, with Republicans sniffing at Democrats’ damning account of Trump’s actions and insisting they had heard no evidence of wrongdoing.

•Among voters, meanwhile, there are signs of an underwhelming response to the supposed drama of impeachment.

•As some Democratic presidential candidates are forced to remain in Washington – @amyklobuchar
, @BernieSanders and @SenWarren are senators, and serve as the impeachment jury – other hopefuls are campaigning ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

Andrew Yang is holding five events in Iowa today, while Tulsi Gabbard and Deval Patrick are in New Hampshire.

Democrats to present their case for Trump's alleged abuse of power
The House impeachment managers spent more than seven hours yesterday laying out their case that the president tried to pressure a foreign ally to investigate his political rival.

When the impeachment trial resumes in about an hour and a half, @RepAdamSchiff and his team are expected to make the argument for why those actions necessitate Trump’s removal from office.

@SenSchumersays Trump's lawyers are 'tending toward conspiracy theories'
Turning his attention to impeachment, Senate minority leader @SenSchumer praised the performance of the House impeachment managers yesterday as they began presenting their opening arguments.

The Democratic senator said @RepAdamSchiff and his team were “setting the bar very high” for Trump’s legal team. “@RepAdamSchiff had such power in his speech that he almost forced [Republicans] to listen,” @SenSchumer said.

@SenSchumer also criticized the arguments so far from the president’s lawyers, who he described as “unprepared, confused and tending toward conspiracy theories.”

When Dems played the old clip of Graham on the big screen, @LindseyGrahamSC was actually not in the room.

He had actually left about 5 minutes beforehand.

Possibly because each senator had a copy of @RepJerryNadler 's Powerpoint, including pics of each slide in order.

Senate impeachment trial resumes
Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts has assumed his post, and the Senate impeachment trial will now resume.

The Senate chaplain, Barry Black, began the proceedings by asking senators to remember that “listening is often more than hearing.”

Many senators from both parties were criticized yesterday for repeatedly walking out of the trial room or speaking while the impeachment managers were presenting.

@RepJerryNadler says Trump's conduct 'puts even President Nixon to shame'
Impeachment manager @RepJerryNadler, the chairman of the House judiciary committee, is beginning his team’s second day of opening arguments.

The New York Democrat said the allegations against Trump “rank among the most serious charges ever brought against the president.”

“This conduct is not America first. It is Donald Trump first,” @RepJerryNadler added. “It puts even President Nixon to shame.”

Impeachment manager @RepJerryNadler is now running through the history of impeachment, starting with Andrew Johnson.

Johnson, who took office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, was the first president to be impeached but was narrowly acquitted by the Senate.

Johnson’s impeachment ostensibly centered on his violation of the Tenure of Office Act, a law that was later ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

But Johnson’s impeachment was actually the culmination of the president’s bitter feud with Republican lawmakers,

who accused Johnson of trying to nullify the Union’s victory in the Civil War by being lenient toward former Confederate leaders and opposing the expansion of political rights for former slaves.

Impeachment manager @RepJerryNadler is making a point to use the past words of Trump’s allies against them as he makes the case for the president’s removal from office.

@RepJerryNadler just played this 1999 clip of then-congressman @LindseyGrahamSC

“What’s a high crime?”@LindseyGrahamSC said at the time. “How about if an important person hurts somebody of low means? It’s not very scholarly. But I think it’s the truth. I think that’s what they meant by high crimes. Doesn’t even have to be a crime.”

The strategy is interesting coming from @RepJerryNadler , considering his words about the Clinton impeachment have been similarly used against him.

Republicans have often cited this 1998 quote from @RepJerryNadler about impeachment to accuse him of hypocrisy: “It is in

fact a peaceful procedure for protecting the nation from despots, by providing a constitutional means for removing a president who misuses presidential power to make himself a tyrant or otherwise to undermine our constitutional form of government.

@RepJerryNadler concluded his presentation by detailing the constitutional standards for impeachment and arguing Trump’s actions meet those requirements.

“The constitution is not a suicide pact,” @RepJerryNadler said. “It does not leave us stuck with presidents who abuse their

power in unforeseen ways that threaten our security and democracy.

@RepJerryNadler added that impeachment “exists to address threats to the political system.”

“The president’s abuse of power, his betrayal of the national interests and his corruption of our elections plainly qualify as great and dangerous offenses,” he said.

SPEAKING OF JOE BIDEN:
As @RepSylviaGarcia mounts lengthy defense of Joe Biden, going through the Burisma allegations, GOP is listening but either
1. stone faced or
2. dismissively laughing, literally waving it away. (Cotton, Ernst in this group.)

Impeachment manager @RepSylviaGarcia just played a clip of FBI director Christopher Wray saying he has seen “no information” indicating Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election.

Some of Trump’s allies have pushed the baseless claim that Ukraine meddled in the election to justify the president’s alleged interest in preventing corruption in Kyiv.

“We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election,” Wray told ABC News last month.

“As far as the [2020] election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat,” he added.

Impeachment manager @RepSylviaGarcia has stepped off the Senate floor, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has called for a 15-minute recess in the proceedings.

“Rudy Giuliani is not some Svengali here, who has the president under his control,” @RepAdamSchiff
said. “You can say a lot of things about President Trump, but he is not led by the nose by Rudy Giuliani.”

“There is no evidence that 🍊cared one wit about anti-corruption efforts at all, @RepAdamSchiff said

The House intelligence committee chairman said 🍊’s actions made clear that he was only interested in Ukrainian corruption as far as it could benefit his own reelection prospects

Lead impeachment manager @RepAdamSchiff has finished speaking for now and has ceded the floor to fellow House Democrat @RepZoeLofgren.

The California congresswoman started her presentation by outlining Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to

investigate @JoeBiden and the 2016 investigation.
@RepZoeLofgren pointed to a letter Giuliani sent to the Ukrainian president-elect to demonstrate how the president’s personal lawyer acted with Trump’s “knowledge and consent.”

The Senate trial is paused for a 30-minute dinner break. Speaking to reporters outside the chamber, Republican senators continued to complain😣😳😬😡🍊 about a lack of “new” information — despite voting down every effort by Democrats to bring in new testimony and documents.

“We’ve seen this before,” said @SenatorBraun, a Republican senator from Indiana. “I think that they believe that by repackaging it and re-marketing it, we’ll find something different. And I haven’t seen it.”😣😳

“It seems like Groundhog’s Day in the Senate,” echoed @SenJohnBarrasso, a Republican senator from Wyoming. It’s the same thing day after day after day.

@SenatorTimScott, a Republican from South Carolina, described the Democrats’ argument as: “Rinse it, recycle it and repeat it

“It’s the same stories, same videos all over again,” said @SenatorLankford, a Republican from Oklahoma😳“Apparently we’re going to hear it all over again tomorrow.”

Other Republican senators took issue with the Democrats’ argument that the Trump administration weighed his own

political career over national policy.

Commenting “as a veteran and as someone who has a special interest in Ukraine,” @SenJoniErnst, a Republican from Iowa, Ernst said she was🤪 more concerned w how the Obama administration responded to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

“They sent blankets,” Ernst said. “This president has done more.”

Ernst also accused House managers of being hypocritical by “lecturing” senators on Trump’s hold on Ukraine aid when they voted against the last defense bill, which included aid to Ukraine.

She held up a paper with hand-written notes on how they voted.😣😳😬🍊😡

Asked why Trump held up aid, Ernst said it was to give other countries the opportunity to contribute more.

While Senate Republicans are eating Carmine’s Italian food, Democrats are eating barbeque for dinner

As Republicans complained that the House managers were repeating themselves too much, Democrats hit back that the Republicans were being hypocritical.

“You know what? [Republicans] spent all of Tuesday fighting back all of our efforts to present new evidence and new documents,” said Mazie Hirono, a Democratic senator from Hawaii. “As though the things that have already been presented isn’t damning enough of the president.”

Hirono added that Republicans: “don’t want to hear that this president that they’re so busy supporting did these things.

Don McGahn, Trump’s former White House counsel, joked😡 about the ongoing impeachment trial during an event at Stockton University yesterday.

“It’s timely that you’re here. Couldn’t come at a better time,” said William Hughes, who was posing questions to his friend McGahn.

“You have some on one side saying actions were necessary — almost required — and on the other side saying actions aren’t justified — it was rash and an institution is in jeopardy. I ask you about ... Harry and Meghan?”

“That’s a tough one,” McGahn replied. “Not as tough as

where I thought you were going. I heard she called the queen and said she thought it was a perfect call.”

Trump has repeatedly referred to his July call with the Ukrainian president, the source of the whistleblower complaint that sparked the impeachment inquiry, as “perfect.”

In the call, the US president asked Volodymyr Zelenskiy for “a favor” and went on to discuss possible investigations of Joe Biden and the 2016 election.