The latest on President Trump’s impeachment

Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office said that after the House formally notifies the Senate it has named impeachment managers, the Senate has to set up a time for those managers to formally present them.

This is how Senate Republicans have expected tonight’s handoff to go. While the impeachment mangers are expected to soon walk the articles to the Senate, Senate Republicans said they will not officially accept the articles.

Instead, they said they will inform the House managers they should return tomorrow to formally present the articles and read them aloud on the floor.

House Democrats have insisted that they expect the Senate Republicans to accept the articles of impeachment and still plan to attempt to deliver them.

Here’s how David Popp, a spokesperson for McConnell, put it: 

Sen. Lamar Alexander is seen in September 2019 in Washington.

Several Senate Republicans are non-committal on whether they will allow new evidence to be presented in the Senate trial.

“The question is would be why then did they bring the articles of impeachment if they didn’t hear from the witnesses they wanted to hear and hadn’t considered the evidence they want to consider,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee.

Asked if that meant he’s opposed to hearing new evidence, Alexander said: “I didn’t say that.”

Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of Senate Republican leadership, said: “That sounds like a decision the chief justice and the Senate may have to make… I guess i would just deal with that as it comes up.”

This comes amid talk by both House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nader that Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas’ reams of material could present even more evidence pertinent to the trial.

It is expected that Parnas’ records released yesterday will be admissible at the trial. But if more evidence emerges during the trial, it’s an open open question about whether that would be allowed to be presented. 

How this could play out: If there’s an objection by a senator or President Trump’s defense team to new evidence, Chief Justice John Roberts could rule on it or punt on the issue and let the senators decide. Senators could also overrule the chief justice. Fifty-one senators would be needed to approve allowing new evidence to be presented.

There remains some disconnect and confusion between House Democrats and Senate Republicans about what exactly will happen during the 5 p.m. hour when House managers march to the Senate with the intent of delivering the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

What we know:

Here’s the bottom line: Right now, we don’t know exactly what will happen but we should be able to see the managers march across the Capitol to the main entrance of the Senate chamber.

The House clerk could go on the floor and read aloud a message to the Senate that the House has articles of impeachment to present to the Senate. 

It’s also possible the House managers would attempt to enter the Senate chamber (they have floor privileges) and deliver the articles to the Secretary of the Senate or whatever official is there. We just don’t know yet.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is expected to hold an engrossment ceremony at 5 p.m. ET. This is the formal signing and delivery of the documents. 

After that, the impeachment managers — seven Democrats who are serving as the prosecutors in the Senate trial — will walk across the Capitol with the articles in a blue folder. The House Clerk and House Sergeant at Arms will be with them as they walk to the Senate.

Here’s what we’re expecting when they get to the Senate:

The Senate has drafted a document on decorum guidelines for the impeachment trial, including rules senators — who will be serving as jurors — must follow.

John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, will preside over the trial, and senators have been told hey must be in attendance for all proceedings.

Here are a few of the rules mentioned in the guidelines:

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said “there may very well be” more evidence from Lev Parnas that could be used in Senate trial.

Asked today if that would be admissible in the Senate trial, Nadler told CNN’s Manu Raju: “Of course it would be if the Senate is a real trial.”

Nadler added: “We will work that out” when asked how the impeachment managers would divide up their work.

More on Parnas: The indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani turned over photos, dozens of text messages and thousands of pages of documents to House impeachment investigators in an effort to win his client an audience with lawmakers.

Joseph A. Bondy, Parnas’ New York attorney, traveled to Washington, DC, last weekend to hand-deliver the contents of an iPhone 11 to Democratic staff on the House Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, according to a series of Bondy’s tweets.

Parnas has also provided investigators with documents, recordings, photos, text messages on WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging platform, and materials from a Samsung phone, according to Bondy. Material from two other devices, an iPad and another iPhone, are also expected to be shared with them.

Parnas, his business partner Igor Fruman, and two others were charged with funneling foreign money into US elections and using a straw donor to obscure the true source of political donations. They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.

White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said the President is still comfortable with going to Davos, Switzerland next week for the World Economic Forum, even under the cloud of impeachment,

But pressed on whether Trump would actually go, Gidley said: “He is scheduled to go and we are prepared to go but we’ll see what happens.” 

On other scheduling matters, Gidley said there was no announcement or change to State of the Union plans, which could potentially be delivered during the trial.

The seven House impeachment managers are having a strategy meeting right now in the House Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.

CNN spotted Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Hakeem Jeffries, who both told CNN that they learned of their appointments yesterday. Lofgren said it was a “serious group.”

CNN also spotted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walking into the House SCIF earlier.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski saluted the just announced Senate rules for the impeachment trial that are designed to ensure senators are not distracted and can pay close attention to the proceedings. 

The rules include a ban on smart phones, a requirement senators sit at their desks and not talk to their neighbors, and not read any materials not directly associated with the ongoing testimony.  

Brad Parscale, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s decision to wait to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate “proves that there was never any urgency.”

Earlier today, the House voted to send the articles to the Senate, weeks after representatives voted to approve the articles of impeachment last month.

 Here’s his full statement: