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California Rep. Adam Schiff kicked off the House Democrats' three-day opening case against President Trump by accusing him of trying to "cheat" in the 2020 election through his Ukraine dealings, following a raucous first day of impeachment trial speeches in the Senate that lasted into the middle of the night. Trump "attempt[ed] to use the powers of the presidency to cheat in an election," Schiff, the top House Democratic impeachment manager, said in kicking off the House's case against Trump. He argued the only remedy is impeachment -- going so far as to question the legitimacy of this year's presidential...

NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS was the first major network to break away from President Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate on Tuesday, allowing its viewers to watch their regular afternoon fare instead of a debate over a proposed amendment to subpoena White House documents. The decision illustrated the on-the-fly judgments television executives will face every day of the trial, juggling concerns over millions of dollars in advertising revenue, news purists cognizant of the weight of history and angry soap opera fans. Uncertainty over the Senate's schedule from hour to hour, much less day to day, complicates things even...

After Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) proposed an amendment Tuesday to the rules for President Trump’s impeachment trial in order to subpoena witnesses and documents from the White House, it failed in a party-line vote. All 53 Republicans in the GOP-controlled Senate voted against Schumer’s amendment, which asked for any records created by former national-security adviser John Bolton, Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and Mulvaney aide Robert Blair regarding the White House’s dealings with Ukraine. **SNIP** “We’re very glad they moved to three days instead of two so we won’t be hearing arguments at two in the...

Sen. Bernie Sanders l-Vt., is hoping for a fast impeachment trial so he can resume his campaigning in Iowa ahead of the upcoming caucuses -- but according to Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., the "establishment Democrats" are hoping to drag out the process and occupy the senator in order to hand the nomination to his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. "You have establishment Republicans like Mitt Romney working against Donald Trump. Then, you have establishment Democrats working against Bernie Sanders," Gaetz said Monday on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "They’re trying to give Joe Biden the field in Iowa and keep Bernie...

Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, one of the House impeachment managers, said the question of whether witnesses are heard in President Trump's Senate impeachment trial may have to be settled by Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, who will be presiding over the trial. But, he warned that witnesses like Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden's son, are "immaterial" and would constitute an "abuse" of the Senate trial. **SNIP** One of the names that's been floated for Republicans is Hunter Biden, who was on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his father was vice president. "It would certainly...

The House Democrats who will make the case for President Trump’s removal from office face a rapid briefing schedule and uncertain trial rules before squaring off against Trump’s defense team on Tuesday for the first time in their four-month investigation. The seven impeachment managers face multiple challenges as they take their case out of the confines of the House and into the Republican-controlled Senate. For one, they are facing a skeptical, if not openly hostile, jury in the 53-seat GOP majority that will be able to set the rules of engagement for the trial. While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell...

As the Senate officially embarked Thursday on an impeachment trial against a president for just the third time in U.S. history, Senate Republicans pressed ahead amid two bombshells about President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine. The news could have thrown a wrench into the proceedings and pressured Republicans to be concerned about probable wrongdoing. But GOP senators appeared apathetic to the findings of a government watchdog agency that determined Trump violated the law by withholding military aid from Ukraine and that new evidence further detailed the president's efforts to force the ouster of a former ambassador and pressure Ukraine to...

Members of the senate took an oath on Thursday to uphold "impartial justice" as President Trump's impeachment trial gets underway. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath to senators, who were standing at their desks on the Senate floor with their right hands raised. "Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, president of the United States, now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help you god?" Roberts asked senators. Senators then walked down to the front of the chamber...

When the impeachment proceedings against President Trump begin again next week, he won't be the only one facing scrutiny, Rep. Jerry Nadler said. "The Senate is on trial as well as the president," Nadler said during a Wednesday press conference. "Does the Senate conduct a trial according to the Constitution to vindicate the Republic, or does the Senate participate in the president’s crimes by covering them up?” **SNIP** "The emphasis is on litigators and on making the strongest possible case to the American people," the speaker said. Nadler, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called into questioned the integrity...

Two things happened simultaneously on Wednesday: (a) The House of Representatives transmitted to the Senate two articles of impeachment approved on straight partisan lines a month ago, and (b) the House’s impeachment inquiry - yes, it’s still very much alive - highlighted new, relevant evidence it has turned up about the activities in Ukraine of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Giuliani’s associates. The Democrats’ strategy is coming clear. The House provided the Senate with two half-baked impeachment articles. House Democrats rushed through the investigation, forgoing salient witnesses and evidence, because of the political calendar. The charges are weak...

The rules for senators during President Donald Trump's impeachment trial effectively turn them into high school students. They are not allowed to use their iPhones, they have to keep quiet, and they must remain seated during the process. "During the impeachment proceedings, standing will not be permitted on the floor and this requirement will be strictly enforced. Accordingly, all senators are requested to remain in their seats at all times they are on the Senate floor during the impeachment proceedings," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a letter on Wednesday. **SNIP** In addition...

LOS ANGELES – Attorney Michael Avenatti was arrested by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents Tuesday evening during a break in a disciplinary hearing in Los Angeles over allegations that the high-profile lawyer scammed a client out of $840,000. The arrest occurred around 6 p.m. outside the State Bar Court, where the State Bar of California has initiated proceedings against him. * * * Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, told Fox News that Avenatti was arrested on suspicion of violating his pre-trial release. * * * Avenatti was supposed to travel to New York...

The Senate is poised to launch into an impeachment trial for President Trump as early as next Tuesday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, as warring factions on Capitol Hill ended an impasse that had left the entire process in limbo for nearly four weeks.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff skirted around the question of whether he would adhere to a subpoena to testify in a Senate impeachment trial against President Trump. The California Democrat, who led the House impeachment hearings, claimed during Monday's episode of The View that submitting to Republican witness demands would turn the trial into a "sham." Referring to Trump's tweet over the weekend calling for Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi be witnesses, co-host Abby Huntsman, who announced she is leaving The View after two seasons to help run her father’s gubernatorial campaign in Utah, asked, "Would you, if...

Chuck Schumer lost the first impeachment trial battle to Mitch McConnell. But the Democratic leader and his party insist they can still win the war. While Senate Majority Leader McConnell has locked up enough Republican votes to ignore demands for a bipartisan framework for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, his Democratic counterpart is readying a counteroffensive. Schumer will force a series of votes designed to squeeze vulnerable Republicans and harm them on the campaign trail if they side with Trump. Democrats argue the half-dozen at-risk GOP senators will need some daylight between them and Trump to get reelected. And if...

A potential juror for the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault case in New York was dismissed after she told the court she could not be impartial because a friend had had an 'encounter' with the embattled movie mogul in his hotel room. The woman's comment was made this week when asked by Judge James Burke if she could be a fair and impartial juror in Weinstein's case. 'I have a close friend who had an encounter with the defendant in his hotel room,' the woman said, according to BuzzFeed News. The news comes after reports that Harvey Weinstein's defense team was...

After nearly a month of dithering, Nancy Pelosi is finally accepting defeat in her standoff with Mitch McConnell over impeachment. Despite insisting as recently as Thursday that she would wait to transmit the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate until she was confident that the trial in the upper chamber would proceed on terms favorable to her party, she quietly backed down on Friday morning. Her letter to Democratic colleagues in the House announced that the articles would be sent next week even though McConnell has made it clear that none of her demands - testimony from...

If what Democrats said was true, that they could do whatever they wanted given the Constitution supposedly granting them "sole power" on the grounds of impeachment, and this supposedly meant they could ignore the rest of the Constitution and act like dictators in the process, then where it also says the Senate has "sole power" for trial, McConnell and other Repubs in the Senate have equal power to Pelosi, Schifty, and Nadler, just different functions within this context. So if Dems could call anyone they wanted to be interrogated, then Repubs can call anyone they want to be a witness....

A group of women whose lives were ruined after being coerced into participating in pornography has just gotten some small measure of vindication in a civil suit against the pornographers. According to The Washington Post, a California judge has tentatively ordered a pornography company to pay $13 million to 22 young women after ruling that they were tricked and inappropriately pressured to make the videos which did not, as promised, stay offline. The ruling, given last Thursday, was the latest development in the women’s years-long legal battle against the owners of GirlsDoPorn, a San Diego-based business that made millions producing...

This didn’t take long, did it? Almost as soon as Mitch McConnell got past the 51st vote to use the rules from Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial for Donald Trump’s, he moved to seal the victory: Senate Republican leaders are preparing to move forward on a set of impeachment trial rules without Democratic support.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is on the verge of having sufficient backing in his 53-member caucus to pass a blueprint for the trial that leaves the question of seeking witnesses and documents until after opening arguments are made, according to multiple senators.That framework would mirror the...