Iran Press/America: The rules resolution from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was approved 53-47 after Republicans defeated a series of amendments from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the opening day of the bitterly fought impeachment trial.
Schumer proposed 11 amendments seeking to subpoena a trove of documents from the Trump administration and witnesses like acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton, but the amendments were thwarted almost entirely by the same party-line vote, 53-47, CNN reported.
As the debate continued into the early hours of Wednesday morning, tempers increasingly began to flare. Chief Justice John Roberts admonished both the House managers and the President's lawyers after a particularly heated back and forth with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, and Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow. Roberts said he was admonishing the two sides "in equal terms to remember that they are addressing the world's greatest deliberative body."
The debate over the trial rules played out after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided to alter the trial resolution shortly before it gaveled in Tuesday, amid concerns from key Senate Republicans and an uproar from Democrats.
"Here in the Senate, the President's lawyers will finally receive a level playing field with the House Democrats, and will finally be able to present the President's case," McConnell said.
Tuesday's session was the first substantive day in the Senate trial after the House impeached Trump last month for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. House Democrats charge that the President abused his office by withholding US security aid and a White House meeting while pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, and then covered it up by obstructing the impeachment inquiry.
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