Why are politicians working overtime on impeachment?

My first exposure to the impeachment show is this evening in a hotel lobby here in Charleston, South Carolina:

Note the time: 10:48 pm. Why are they working beyond normal business hours? Trial courts usually work only 9:30-4 or similar.

If Trump is obviously guilty, why can’t he be convicted on a 9-5 schedule? (Did the House go into these late sessions back in December?)

15 thoughts on “Why are politicians working overtime on impeachment?

  1. Moscow Mitch, the GOP leader and his republican majority set the rules so you’ll have to ask them why they chose the odd hours and schedule that they did. The House held their hearings during normal hours, as the Democrats were in control.

    • Yep, Moscow Mitch arranged this so that the moment of conviction could be televised live on the Russian TV

  2. It’s gavel to gavel on my local NPR station. I listened to about an hour and a half today while driving; it was exceedingly dry despite the attempts to liven it up into a national nightmare. As courtroom drama it’s very weak stuff. One benefit for the Democrats of having the late nights would ostensibly be so that people can tune in after work. Having listened to it today, I don’t think it’ll hold their interest very long. Even NPR’s commentators including Mara Liasson sounded a little bored and annoyed at times.

    Democrats’ Impeachment Strategy Is To Bore Everyone To Death
    https://dailycaller.com/2020/01/22/democrats-impeachment-strategy-is-bore-everyone-to-death/
    Republican Senators Are Literally Playing With Kids’ Toys During The Impeachment Trial
    https://dailycaller.com/2020/01/23/gop-senators-kids-toys-fidget-spinners/

    If they call Giuliani as a witness, he could inject some physical comedy by showing up drunk, leaning back too far and falling out of his chair, stuff like that.

    • >If they call Giuliani as a witness, he could inject some physical comedy by showing up drunk, leaning back too far and falling out of his chair, stuff like that.

      They really should make a drinking game of the whole proceedings — Get Justice Roberts drunk and get him doing body shots off of Susan Collins, the Senator from Maine.

      Trump shows up with Melania and she does a strip tease. Rand Paul organizes a panty raid of the progressive women’s caucus. Good times are had by all.

  3. The hearings begin at 1:00 PM and run for 8 hours. But for the DNC/News Media it’s a 24 hour circus. I’m sure once the defense arguments begin you won’t see much coverage of that aspect of the trial. They’ve already caught George Stephanopoulus trying to cut off an interview with one of the defense attorneys. Interesting look on his face when he realizes he’s been caught. https://youtu.be/ueOIOWnzMwA

    If Giuliani had to take a drink every time Adam Schiff told a lie, he would definitely show up drunk.

    • They don’t start until 1 pm? Are they doing regular Senate stuff from 9-1 and then impeachment trial from 1-midnight?

    • I believe Clinton’s trial days started at 1pm as well.

      I’m not sure what the Senate does in the morning, but the Supreme Court has heard oral arguments this week, and clearly Justice Roberts cannot be in two places at once!

    • The reason the trial starts at 1pm is not interrupt the supreme courts schedule….. just remember what Obama always said! If you like your Supreme Court you can keep your Supreme Court!

  4. Apparently there was a second session yesterday from 7:15 PM until 10:30 or so. It’s supposed to be 24 hours (3 days) for the house managers, then 24 hours for the defense team, followed by 16 hours of questioning and 4 hours of closing arguments.

    I had thought they were going from 1 – 9 each day. But maybe they’re breaking it up.

  5. > If Trump is obviously guilty, why can’t he be convicted on a 9-5 schedule?

    The Democrats are spending a lot of time on every single detail they can possibly include not just to prove guilt but motive. They really want to indict the Administration and the entire Republican Party. If the Senate acquits Trump, their side is going to be mad as hell at the miscarriage of justice and view the President and the Senate Republicans as criminals and those who aid and abet criminals. I think the most explosive results of the trial won’t be what happens in the Senate, but what happens in the aftermath.

    If anyone wanted a return to a Washington or a political environment that was more bipartisan and less polarized, they can forget about it happening.

    I don’t think the Democrats will accept an acquittal. They’ve built this thing to the point that they really can’t. And the Republicans are not going to give them a conviction, so this trial won’t settle anything. All this talk about accepting the impeachment itself as punishment, a kind of censure, is nonsense. Maybe they’ll wind up settling it with a few pistol duels on the Mall.

    • Vince: I was going to link the exact same thing. Phil out here proving that if republicans didn’t have double standards they’d have no standards at all.

  6. I listened to some of it over the past 2 days.

    I wish there was 1/10 of this much detailed analyses, in dept research, commitment and dedication on other issues that our government is work on (are they, have they?!).

    The level of details (repeated by each senator) and vivid delivery (repeated by each senator) is just so amazing and down to a minute-by-minute play of the events.

  7. Time for you to be an expert witness in Trump’s software patent scandal. Democrats patented winning & he won instead. This can’t be allowed.

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