Revised: www.politico.com/ article (Feb. 11, 2021)
Speeding things up further, Trump's legal team is supposed to wrap up its arguments on Friday. Under the trial rules they have 16 hours, which they can use on both Friday and Saturday.
"We will finish up our presentation tomorrow/Friday," Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, announced in a tweet.
The House impeachment managers are using both of their days, but are expected to yield back some time. They started their opening arguments on Tuesday and continued on Wednesday, when the trial is expected to wrap around 6 p.m.
After opening arguments, senators still have up to four hours to ask questions. That's significantly shorter than the two days used in Trump's first trial.
Aides also expect that the trial could go straight from the question-and-answer period to up to two hours of debate over whether or not to call witnesses.
Neither Trump's legal team nor the House managers have completely closed the door on calling witnesses, but senators have signaled they don't think it's necessary. Calling witnesses, something Democrats unsuccessfully tried to do during Trump's first trial, would drag the proceeding out for days if not weeks.
After that the only steps left before a final vote is for both sides to make closing arguments, something they have four hours to do, and the potential for senators to take time to deliberate.
www.npr.org/
On Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021 beginning at 1 p.m. ET., there will be up to four hours equally divided between the impeachment managers and the president's counsel to debate the constitutionality of the trial.
After the arguments, the Senate will vote on whether it has the jurisdiction to try a former president. The threshold to pass is a simple majority of 51 votes.
If it passes, the trial will proceed with up to 16 hours per side to present their case beginning at noon ET on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021.
The resolution states that each side can't go over two days in presenting their case and that each day's presentation can't exceed 8 hours.
After the presentations are done, senators will have a total of four hours to question both sides. Then, there will be four hours divided equally between the parties for arguments on whether the Senate will consider motions to subpoena witnesses and documents, if requested by the managers.
The impeachment managers have already said that the senators themselves, who were sitting in the chamber the day of the Jan. 6 attack, are witnesses. Most lawmakers on both sides say adding witness testimony would prolong the trial unnecessarily.
There will be up to four hours equally divided for closing arguments, along with deliberation time if requested by the senators before the vote takes place.
The trial will pause during the Jewish Sabbath, which begins Friday at sundown and ends Saturday evening, at the request of Trump's lawyer David Schoen.
The trial will reconvene the afternoon of Sunday, Feb. 14.
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