What to Expect from the House and Senate on Trump’s Impeachment

After a monthlong delay, the House is expected to vote on Wednesday to send two articles of impeachment to the Senate, setting in motion only the third presidential impeachment trial in American history.

The day will be filled with pomp and circumstance, including a vote on the House floor, a formal “engrossment” ceremony of the impeachment articles and a procession through the Capitol Rotunda to formally deliver the charges to the Senate.

What we’re expecting to see: Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to reveal whom she has chosen to serve as the impeachment managers to prosecute the case against President Trump in the Senate, and the House will vote to formally appoint them and transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

When we’re likely to see it: Ms. Pelosi is scheduled to announce her choice of impeachment managers at a news conference at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. The House is scheduled to vote on the managers from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., after a 10-minute debate. Ms. Pelosi and the managers will hold the engrossment ceremony at 5 p.m., and the managers will immediately march across the Capitol to deliver the charges.

How to follow it: The New York Times congressional team will be following all of the developments on Capitol Hill and reporters at the White House will get the latest on the next steps for President Trump and his allies. Come to nytimes.com throughout the day for live coverage.

Wednesday’s formalities will largely bring to a conclusion the House’s constitutional role in filing impeachment charges against the president, and ends the frosty standoff between Ms. Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, over the outlines of the Senate trial.

Ms. Pelosi had hoped to force Mr. McConnell to commit to calling witnesses and allowing additional documentary evidence by withholding the two impeachment articles for several weeks. But the tactic largely failed after a handful of moderate Republican senators agreed with Mr. McConnell to delay the decision about witnesses and documents until after both sides presented their arguments and senators had an opportunity to ask questions. That could take two weeks or more.

The last time such a handoff took place, during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999, senators struck a bipartisan agreement on the trial rules, voting 100 to 0 to approve them. No such effort is being made this year; Mr. McConnell has said in recent days that he expects all 53 Republican senators to back a trial resolution that could pass without Democratic support.

While Ms. Pelosi will have no formal role in the trial, her hand-selected managers will be front and center, presenting the charges that Mr. Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to announce investigations of his political rivals, and then obstructed congressional investigations of his actions.

The delivery of the impeachment articles sets in motion several weeks of uncertainty for the Senate.

The general outlines of the trial are clear: The House managers will present the case against Mr. Trump over several days, a team of White House lawyers will then present the president’s defense during an equal period of time, and then senators will be allowed to submit questions in writing to the chief justice.

But the details are still fuzzy — even to the senators themselves. The amount of time each side will get, when opening statements will start and how they will address the question of witnesses is not yet clear.

Mr. McConnell said on Tuesday that some of the answers could come early next week, when the Senate convenes the trial and votes on a Republican organizing resolution. But several Republican senators said that they still had not seen a draft of the resolution.

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