Watch live coverage Wednesday as the full House of Representatives debates and votes on two articles of impeachment against President Trump.
Watch live coverage here:
Here’s the schedule:
- 9 a.m. -- House gavels in
- 1 hour debate on the rule
- 10 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: House votes on the RULE
- 6 hours of debate, equally divided
- 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.: House votes on the ARTICLES
Meanwhile, Vice President Pence and President Trump both are rallying in Michigan on Wednesday.
How the impeachment process works
- Congress is permitted to remove a president from office if lawmakers vote to say the official committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” according to the Constitution.
- “High crimes and misdemeanors” does not necessarily refer to violations of ordinary criminal statutes.
- Alexander Hamilton described impeachable crimes as “ those offenses which proceed from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. ”
- President Gerald Ford: “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”
- The two most recent presidential impeachments began with the House voting whether to investigate impeachable offenses. A House committee would then conduct the investigation to see if impeachment is warranted.
- There are currently six committees investigating Trump’s presidency. They will continue investigating impeachable offenses and send their strongest cases to the Judiciary Committee.
- These six committees are Judiciary, Intelligence, Ways and Means, Financial Services, Oversight and Foreign Affairs.
- Articles of impeachment based on the investigation are written up by the Judiciary Committee to be voted on by the House of Representatives.
- If less than a majority in the House vote to impeach, the official remains in office.
- If a majority vote to impeach, the process moves to the Senate.
- Democrats currently control the House, and would likely vote to impeach.
- The Senate holds an impeachment trial overseen by the chief justice of the United States.
- Chief Justice John Roberts currently presides over the Supreme Court of the United States.
- A team of lawmakers from the House, known as managers, play the role of prosecutors.
- The official facing impeachment has defense lawyers.
- The Senate serves as the jury.
- A two-thirds majority in the Senate must find the official guilty in order for them to be removed from office.
- Republicans currently control the Senate.
- President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House, but was not convicted by the Senate and remained in office.