The impeachment drive against President Trump moves into a new phase on Monday as the House Judiciary Committee begins to hear evidence from both sides while Democrats draft proposed articles of impeachment charging him with high crimes and misdemeanors for pressuring Ukraine to help him against his domestic political rivals.
The basics: Who, what, when and how to watch.
Who: The House Judiciary Committee will hear presentations of the evidence by Democratic and Republican lawyers.
What: The “opening arguments” will be made by Barry H. Berke for the committee Democrats and Stephen R. Castor for the Republicans. Daniel S. Goldman, the Democratic counsel for the House Intelligence Committee, will then present the evidence for impeachment, and Mr. Castor will present the evidence against it. Judiciary Committee members will then ask questions.
When and Where: The morning proceedings start at 9 Eastern in the House Ways and Means Committee chambers. They will most likely last until late in the afternoon.
How to Watch: The New York Times will stream the testimony live, and a team of reporters in Washington will provide real-time context and analysis of the events on Capitol Hill. Follow along at nytimes.com, starting a few minutes before 9.
A critical week in the impeachment drive.
After hearing from constitutional scholars last week, the House Judiciary Committee turns from theory to reality as it conducts its first hearing on the evidence in the case against Mr. Trump and examines whether his actions rise to the level of impeachable offenses.
But the committee does not plan to hear directly from fact witnesses, who previously testified before the House Intelligence Committee. Instead, it will hear from lawyers for both parties who will outline and analyze the information already gathered to make the case for why it does or does not justify impeaching the president.
The White House refuses to participate in the hearing, meaning that no lawyers for the president will appear, unlike impeachment hearings involving past presidents. The White House has argued that the inquiry is illegitimate, partisan and rigged against Mr. Trump, so it will wait to mount a defense in a Senate trial, assuming the full House does vote to impeach him. For now, the president will leave his defense to committee Republicans, who have rallied behind him.
The committee is then poised to move quickly later in the week to consider articles of impeachment accusing Mr. Trump of abusing his power, obstructing Congress and obstructing justice. Assuming one or more articles are approved along party lines by the Democratic majority, as expected, it would set the stage for a vote by the full House before Christmas, making Mr. Trump only the third president in American history to be impeached.