The basics: Who, what, when and how to watch.
Who: The 41 members of the House Judiciary Committee will debate two articles of impeachment against President Trump.
What: The committee members will consider any amendments to the two draft articles that House Democrats unveiled Tuesday. The panel will then vote on whether to recommend that the full House approve the articles.
When and Where: 9 a.m. Thursday in the Ways and Means Committee Room near the Capitol.
How to Watch: The New York Times will stream the committee debate 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 just before 9.
The debate will underscore partisan divisions on impeaching the president.
For only the third time in modern history, lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee will formally consider articles of impeachment against a sitting president. The debate will underscore the deep divisions between Democrats and Mr. Trump’s Republican allies.
The process began on Wednesday night, with lawmakers delivering statements for or against impeaching the president.
On Thursday, Democrats will put the last touches on articles accusing Mr. Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, finalizing charges stemming from their two-and-a-half-month inquiry into the president’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations of his political rivals.
For Republicans, the meeting — called a “markup” because it gives members the opportunity to offer amendments and edits to the articles — is their last chance to try to derail the impeachment before the articles are expected to come to the House floor early next week.
That is unlikely to happen in the committee, which is firmly under the control of Democrats and led by Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York. Both sides expect the committee to vote along party lines by Thursday afternoon to send the articles to the full House.
But the committee debate is certain to be intense as Democrats make their case that Mr. Trump “ignored and injured the interests of the nation” and Republicans angrily accuse the president’s adversaries of waging an unfair assault on the presidency based on insufficient evidence.
The markup is a test of party unity under Pelosi.
The Judiciary Committee’s debate on Thursday will be an important test of the party discipline that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has sought to maintain since late September, when she announced that the House would begin an impeachment inquiry against Mr. Trump related to the Ukraine matter.
Only two House Democrats voted against formalizing Ms. Pelosi’s impeachment inquiry in a House vote about a month later. It was a demonstration of remarkable unity within the caucus about using one of the gravest remedies in the Constitution to hold the president accountable for his actions.
But some moderate Democrats whose conservative-leaning districts voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 have in the past expressed concerns about impeaching the president.
There is no indication that any of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee intend to break with Ms. Pelosi by voting against sending the articles to the full House. While the markup process allows them to offer amendments, few if any are expected to do anything to substantively change the charges.
Republicans will look to delay and undercut the process.
Republicans have no expectations that they can prevent the Judiciary Committee from sending articles of impeachment to the full House, but Thursday’s markup session is a high-profile opportunity to denounce the process and try to undermine the Democratic case against the president.
Any amendments that Republicans offer are all but certain to be rejected on party-line votes by the committee, which is heavily skewed in favor of Democrats. But that may not prevent them from offering some of them and causing delays by requesting roll-call votes.
The Republicans could offer amendments to water down the impeachment articles, eliminate one or both of the articles entirely or change the wording in ways that Democrats would not accept.
Such changes could be intended to show Mr. Trump — who has watched hours of the impeachment hearings — and Republican voters that they are fighting back against attempts by Ms. Pelosi and House Democrats to impeach the president next week.
But Republicans are already looking past the House vote to a trial in the Republican-led Senate. Mr. Trump has said he is expecting to receive a fair trial that could include a robust defense by his allies and ends with a complete acquittal.
Before then, catch up on some important background on the impeachment inquiry.
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Mr. Trump and his advisers repeatedly pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate people and issues of political concern to Mr. Trump, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Here’s a timeline of events since January.
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A C.I.A. officer who was once detailed to the White House filed a whistle-blower complaint on Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. Zelensky. Read the complaint.