House Judiciary panel poised to approve articles of impeachment against Trump

After opening statements Wednesday night from the panel's members, amendments to the articles are being considered Thursday in a session that is expected to stretch several hours.

Shortly afterward Thursday's 9 a.m. hearing convened, Madeline Strasser, the Judiciary Committee's chief clerk, read in full the nine-page resolution that includes the two articles of impeachment.

It concludes that Trump "has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law."

"President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States," the resolution says.

Soon after, Republicans on the committee launched their first procedural attack at the impeachment markup by protesting Chairman Jerrold Nadler's refusal to respond to a request for a minority hearing day on impeachment.

Rep. Douglas Collins, R-Ga., asked the majority on Dec. 4 to schedule a hearing for them to call their own witnesses on behalf of Trump, citing House rules allowing for the minority to have such events on major issues.

"The House rule does not require me to schedule a hearing on a particular day," Nadler, D-N.Y. said at Thursday's hearing. "Nor does it require me to schedule the hearing as a condition precedent to taking any specific legislative action. Otherwise, the minority would have the ability to delay or block majority legislative action, which is clearly not the purpose of the rule."

Collins blasted Democrats for trampling minority rights: "Minority rights are dead in this committee."

Democrats are confident they have the votes to approve both articles, setting up votes by the full House next week before the holiday break.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said a trial would begin in his chamber in early January. Senate Republicans are coalescing around a strategy of holding a short impeachment trial early next year that would include no witnesses.

Trump is just the fourth president in U.S. history to face the prospect of impeachment for alleged misconduct in office. A

Congress has impeached only two presidents: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before the House could vote on articles of impeachment in the Watergate scandal. Lawmakers drafted three articles against Nixon, including charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors" that mirror the abuse-of-power and obstruction allegations Trump now faces.

At the heart of the Democrats' case is the allegation that Trump tried to leverage a White House meeting and military aid, sought by Ukraine to combat Russian military aggression, to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch an investigation of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as well as a probe of an unfounded theory that Kyiv conspired with Democrats to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump returned to Twitter early Thursday morning to push back on Democratic efforts to impeach him. In one tweet, he said that new polls show most Americans oppose impeachment, attributing that information to the Fox News show "Fox & Friends."

Some polls in recent days have showed a slim majority opposed to removing Trump from office, but others have showed slightly more Americans in favor of removing than keeping him.

In a Monmouth University poll released this week, 45% of Americans said they think that Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 50% disagreed.

Meanwhile, an Economist-YouGov poll showed that 44% of Americans support the Senate removing Trump if he is impeached by the House, while 40% were opposed.

The president and first lady Melania Trump are scheduled to host an annual congressional ball at the White House on Thursday night. The event, listed on Trump's public schedule at 7 p.m., could provide an incentive for Republican lawmakers to wind down their efforts at the House Judiciary Committee by then.