Senate Republicans have altered planned rules for the presidential impeachment trial to allow House evidence to be included and to avoid late-night proceedings.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, was criticized by Democrats for drafting trial rules that would require both the impeachment managers and President Trump’s defense attorneys to each present arguments over 24 hours spread over two days.
McConnell has extended that rule to 24 hours spread over three days, which will make it less likely that the managers or lawyers will have to extend their arguments late into the night.
McConnell also altered a rule that would have required a Senate vote to admit all of the evidence collected in the House impeachment investigation. Instead, the evidence will be accepted unless the Senate blocks it with a majority vote.
Democrats had decried the rules for veering far from McConnell’s pledge that they would follow the Clinton impeachment trial model from 1999. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, argued the two-day limit would require impeachment managers to make their cases “in the dark of night.”
“If the president is so confident in his case, why won’t he present it in broad daylight,” Schumer said Tuesday.
The rules now more closely mirror the Clinton-era rules, which allowed each side 24 hours, spread over three days, to present arguments.
