for what america wants and needs, and not simply bow down to the president who, most americans know what this guy is all about. post americans will believe he wants a fair trial? i i don't think so. thank you, everybody. >> for the third time in history a president is on trial in the u.s. senate. watch life today at 1 p.m. eastern on c-span2 as the senate begins the try with a vote on rules. the senate impeachment trial of president trump live unfiltered coverage on c-span2, on-demand@c-span.org/impeachment , , and listen with the free c-span radio app. >> we're glad to welcome paul

gave back, call was for "washington post." what is your read on this trial rule document? >> guest: i think the highlight everybody is looking at is the way mitch mcconnell is trying toh compress the tri, that he does not wanted to go on for quite as long as what the clinton impeachment trial did 21 years ago. that trial was sprawled across five or six weeks. there were sort of multiple stops and starts because they were bringing in witnesses. they werein taking time off to t deposed witnesses. mc connell has set up where you could pretty much be done, conservative estimate are the first weekend of february.. some are even trying to suggest they could wrap up next week, sort of the middle of the week. that's probably a little bit faster than i think it will go but he doesn't -- the house managers, for instance, it to backdate to present 24 hours of testimony. iti have an old timeline from 19

with me. they did it over three days in 1999, and then the presidential lawyers, bill clinton's teen spread their defense over three days. he's basically said to each side you guys get two days. you can have up to 12 hours if you want it but it think that's also his way of trying to say don't expect to use all 12 hours each night because look around. this is a body that is filled with some older people on both sides sides of the aisle. a lot of people will probably want to go home by eight or 9:00. just try and compress what you doing here into two days and then we will try to move this along. it still t sets up a big clash over witnesses and more testimony, more documents. that iss still going to be the biggest moment of the trial. >> host: for folks were trying to wrap their head over his schedule and the document was yesterday, just walk it out for us. today they will be voting on

this package if it passes then take us to tomorrow would be the start ofro the house impeachment managers and theiren first 12 hr day. >> guest: to date will be unique in that senators themselves are not going to be really debating this. this is going to be the house managers and the trump legal defense team will be debating the rules that they are going, that will govern their trial. then it will pass. mcconnell has the votes, all 53 republicans have said they support his plan for this. so then tomorrow at 1:00 there would be some fighting over motions or some preliminary motions from each side. i'm not f sure how long that's going to take but eventually sometime tomorrow the house managers will begin to present their case. you will have adam schiff, six other democrats divided up the case as they say, two articles of impeachment, one for abuse of power, one for obstruction of congress.

they will spread that, , they cn go up to 12 hours wednesday afternoon, evening, night and morning. and come back again thursday and go through that process of up to 12 hours. so at some point thursday night they will finishey up their cas, and then i'm certain it will dismiss the jury, the senators, and friday the president lawyers will come back. the indications we are getting from the white house is that this is likely to be a very long presentation. as a sickly the clinton team took three days of going through and defending president clinton. i i would be surprised if trump lawyers took more than one day to present their case. at that point the next phase is senators get to ask questions of the two legal teams. they haven't put any sort of day

limit on that, though 16 hours, and they literally write down the questions, and then two pages to bring them up to the chief justice, and the team of expert staff sort through the questions to go to both -- are m not exactly sure whether they will take all the questions for the house managers. i think that will still be determined and i think that to some degree will be up to the chief justice. that will probably go across two or three days. if they were to start that on saturday, the senate takes off on sundays for impeachment trials, they come back monday and tuesday to finish up those questions, and then you go into a four hour debate, two hours for each side for the house managers, prosecutors and the trump defense team. >> host: does that start on a fresh day?

>> guest: that still remains to be seen but even if you were to do that on tuesday of next week and you wrap that up, then you get to the point where the senators themselves have to figure out a way to debate the witness issue. it's a little unclear. they mentioned deliberations in the resolution. if they go into a full closed-door deliberation, we would be looking at around tuesday or wednesday, and it's unclear how long that will last. it's unclear whether this is going to be a shorter timeframe and then thesh local back for a more extensive deliberation at the end of the trial. you know, this is a senate that has had very few bipartisan all 100 get-togethers with no staff around. in fact, i think most of these senators have probably only had that experience once or twice. it will be a very interesting

dynamic to see how it plays out, to see how much of those the liberation when you to that point, how much of it is just the leaders leading and the senatorial sheep following? or does something more organic break out? to rank-and-file members who at that point everybody is just one vote, there is no real majority leader and minority leader when that group of 100 gets together. you know, they are prone, they are more likely than not to just sort of follower their leader because that's a modern sin has just become this place where leaders have incredible control over rank and file. but the wildcard is whether or not you can see people, that romney has talked about wanting to get from john bolton. can he work with some democrats to try and make a trade where you can get witnesses? that's theou real wildcard, and

it's always been the wildcard. and even if you try to compress this a day or two here or there as mcconnell has,on i still think ultimately what we are going to try and see it sometime next week this issue of witness is going to come to a head. >> host: how will we know if they allowil witnesses? how long the process will last from there? tragic that to be determined and negotiated. that would be part of those deliberations and there would be votes then about, first a vote on just a generic question of does the senate want to have more testimony, more witnesses? if the answer is no, that short-circuits the process and they could really move fairly quickly to a vote, a vote which would almost be a vote to certainly a quick trumpet if they vote yes, they want to hear more witnesses then have to work through each of those witnesses.

do you want hear john bolton? ifan so, what is the process for that? a would have to come up with people that would go depose bolton first because he would be in depositions first in private. likely in some fashion to be videotaped the way they did in 1999. there was videotaped deposition of monica lewinsky, bill clinton's very close friend, vernon jordan and sidney blumenthal. it would be something akin to that, and then it's a wheeling and dealing think at this point. i don't think we'll ever get to a point where we see life testimony on the senate floor. that has not happened. i think go back to andrew johnson's trial for something and that's 1858. some modern precedent is generally the witnesses don't show up in the well of the

senate. >> host: last process question. you sit tomorrow we begin with preliminary motions. could there be a motion to dismiss? >> guest: everybody has been waiting to see whether or not somebody will try to do that, and the president's team is allowed to offer motions, and emotion that is, often in the trial is a motion to dismiss. eric and you'll lend, the head of the white house legislative affairs was up in the capital yesterday, has been in the capital a lot lately has been expressing the view that the president really wanted to have all of his rights, all of its rights maintained in this resolution. it's maintained. the reality is most senate republicans do not want to dismiss the trial right out of the gate and, therefore, if they held a vote on a motion to dismiss, it would fail. it would not, the case would not

be dismissed. the republican party would break ranks. it could be a 25 voting to immediately dismissed, 28 not. you you would have a very divided, fractured republican conference at the outset. they do not want that to happen. also there are a group of senate republicans who are trying to let president trump know that in the estimation it's better for him politically if there is an actual trial, that there is at least the appearance of an actual trial. and that at the very end he is acquitted. they think that will work better and be politically better for him than if you just dismiss the case outright. the president on the other hand, seems to really like the idea of just dismissing it, likeg if there's something incidentally about in and branding rethinks that the case is dismissed it's just better for him. but the lawyers up there, ted

cruz, lindsey graham are trying to coax him into understanding that at least a ten day trial or so would be better politically for him. >> host: paul kane as a guest. plenty of golf for you. john is in germantown, maryland, up first, , a democrat, good morning, good morning. i'm a democrat who is been a republican in the pastor of which to georgetown and that fellow mcconnell who went to georgetown law is a a disgraceo that place as well as to the people in kentucky. most outrageous of the rule changes he has is at this notin that the house evidence is not automatically admitted. what is that? does that meanwh no trial at al? it's really a terrible disgrace and i'm counting on those four or five republicans to at least make some changes. my guess is he puts some of those outrageous things in their thought that some of the so-called moderates will have a success and get rid of one of them, as if that makes the

difference. >> guest: first of all, senator mcconnell is a university of kentucky law school graduate. he went to label undergrad and then uk law -- louisville undergrad. he was notst a georgetown crap just to clear up. it's something he's very particular about. listen, the evidence issue, it is not, they are not immediately accepting the house evidence as sort of part of the trial. it's weird. it's procedural. it'sei parliamentary, but ultimately, they are going to be able to present their case. they are going to be able to talk about everything that they did in the house intelligence committee, the house judiciary committee. there may come a time where they do not admit into evidence everything that they did, and there's an issue of some of it is considered hearsay because it

was about what lieutenant colonel vindman heard someone say about what somebody else said and so there's been this fight within republicans about what should be considered evidence or not. >> host: can john roberts tell l a center you can't consider this when coming up with your verdict in thist impeachment trial? >> guest: ultimately it's whatever 51 senators decide is evidence. john roberts and a lot of these sort of contentious issues could be punted up to chief justice, the trial judge in this case. but any of these rulings can be challenged by the full senate, and at that point is 51 senators overrule him, they have the - final say. and more likely than not i think we expect the chief justice on contentious issues especially to sort of let the senate decide and let them have the will.

no one expects him to play a super active role here, but ultimately house democrats are going to be able to present their case. they are going to be able to tell these senators what they have found. whether it's accepted into evidence or not is probably ultimately not that critical of an issue. it's sort of in the weeds and ultimately it's about what 100 senators view as high crimes and misdemeanors. >> host: virginia,st david, line for republicans. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thisha guy, rachel bate tweeted out a picture of five reporters from the "washington post" celebrating impeachment. which was an impeachment celebration. this guy she said paid for it. i was wondering if you could explain why anybody should trust or anything the man says as being impartial? because it obvious he showed himself to be completely biased.

i will hang up and take your answer. >> host: . >> guest: he's referring to picture that was last in the house impeachment process, it was a very long, training process for all of us. we went down the street to a restaurant afterwards and we were not celebrating donald trump being impeached. it was really just the end of a long three to four month struggle. we are straight, narrow, down the middle. we are not here to present one side or another, and we are really just here to try to sort of guide people through what is a really strange, cumbersome process. >> host: how long have you been covering congress? >> guest: at least 20 years if the countnt the time we work together roll call. it was 13 years at the post and seven years ate roll call. >> host: on this, coming to impeachment process you talk

about there's been a lot of focus on reporters and the access that they will have. talk about what that the proces like on a daily basis pre-impeachment and what's changed now. >> guest: the capital of the italy a great building in terms of just freedom to move about, both from constituents being able to show up, go meet their senators or their representatives to just come in, sign a book, wait, try to get a meeting with somebody. it's also great in terms of press access when we have pretty much not free range but we can move aboutut the capital and we can go into the chambers and watching them debate on a regular basis that gives us a lot of freedom to talk to members about what they are thinking, how they are being pushed by constituents and interest groups. and now for the impeachment trial in the senate, they are just imposed a bunch of

restrictions on where we can stand. they have pushed us farther away from senators than, both in the basement of the capital on the senate side which is a good place to catch them, and also even just entering the gallery, we have to go, today for the first time ever that i've seen, and my friend andy taylor of the associate press has ever seen, we're going to have to go through a magnetometer just to get into the chamber. we already do that to get into the building. they already just to get into the capital at all you go through a security device. >> for 40 years c-span has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events from washington, d.c. and around the country so you can make up your own mind. created by cable in