House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has named the managers who will prosecute the case for Donald Trump's conviction in a Senate trial. The White House response suggests it will be a drama media outlets will want to cover.
Related: Pelosi Signals Next Act in Impeachment Drama
They are: Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee and a principal figure in the impeachment proceedgins, who will be chief manager; Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee; Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Val Demings (Fla.), Jason Crow (Colo.) and Sylvia Garcia (Texas). Pelosi said the emphasis in choosing those seven was on "litigators."
She said in a press conference that after the House Wednesday (Jan. 15) votes to transmit the articles, "we will march those articles of impeachment over to the Senate."
CBS News signaled it would be airing a special report to cover that March, anchored by Norah O'Donnell, as well as special reports on each day of the Senate trial, which begins next week.
Pelosi said that in the course of these human events, it had become necessary to impeach. She called it a time to try men's souls, then quoted from the Longfellow's poem about the midnight ride of Paul Revere, suggesting this was another one of those historical markers.
She made it clear that the President had already been impeached, which would last "forever."
Responding to Pelosi's announcement, the White House fired back:
"The only thing Speaker Pelosi has achieved with this sham, illegitimate impeachment process, is to prove she is focused on politics instead of the American people," said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. "The Speaker lied when she claimed this was urgent and vital to national security because when the articles passed, she held them for an entire month in an egregious effort to garner political support. She failed and the naming of these managers does not change a single thing. President Trump has done nothing wrong.
Grisham said the President "looks forward to having the due process rights in the Senate that Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats denied to him, and expects to be fully exonerated."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said the Senate trial will begin Tuesday (Jan. 21).
