On Politics A.M.: Impeachment Charges Arrive at Senate

2020年1月16日星期四

January 16, 2020

Good Thursday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today.

The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to transmit two articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate, and newly appointed House impeachment managers then walked the documents across the Capitol to set in motion the third presidential impeachment trial in modern history. (The New York Times will have live coverage today; here’s what to watch for.)
In an interview with The Times, Lev Parnas, a key figure in the Ukraine affair, said the president knew everything about the effort to push Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and the 2016 election. Mr. Parnas also expressed regret for having trusted Mr. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.

While Democrats and Republicans managed to unanimously come to terms on how to start President Bill Clinton’s trial in 1999, today the two parties are irreconcilably divided on how to proceed and whether the trial is even legitimate.
In selecting the seven lawmakers who will serve as managers of the impeachment case, Speaker Nancy Pelosi put together a team of Democrats that is much smaller and far more diverse than the team that prosecuted Mr. Clinton.
Despite a potential loss of momentum in their campaigns, four Democratic senators — two of them front-runners for their party’s presidential nomination — will have to leave the campaign trail to sit in judgment of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump signed an initial trade deal with China on Wednesday, bringing the first chapter of a protracted and economically damaging fight with one of the world’s largest economies to a close.
The sudden clash between Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders over gender and honesty injected new uncertainty into the Democratic presidential race, after the broadcast of a recording that showed the two candidates trading accusations that each had called the other a “liar.”
In the early fall, Ms. Warren seemed to be the Democratic candidate to beat in Iowa. But many voters have had second thoughts over how her sweeping agenda would sell against Mr. Trump.
The White House released $16 billion in emergency aid to Puerto Rico, which has been battered by an earthquake and storms, but imposed severe restrictions on how it could be spent, including blocking funds for the island’s electrical grid.

Virginia became the 38th state to approve the Equal Rights Amendment. But the deadline for three-quarters, or 38, of the 50 states to approve the E.R.A. expired in 1982, so the future of the measure is uncertain.

A federal judge has temporarily suspended a new Trump administration policy that allowed state and local authorities to opt out of receiving refugees, concluding that the policy would probably be found to be illegal.

Today’s On Politics briefing was compiled by Isabella Grullón Paz in New York.

Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.