JOHN YANG: The stage is set
tonight for the next act in
the impeachment drama: a Senate

trial of President Trump.

But there are questions
about just when that will
happen. Those questions
arose after House

Democrats finished their work
last night, and the answers
remained unclear today.

The morning after the
House voted to impeach
President Trump, Senate
Majority Leader Mitch

McConnell reassured
the president's allies.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL
(R-KY): The Senate exists
for moments like this.

JOHN YANG: He slammed House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has
said she may delay sending

the articles of impeachment
to the Senate, a necessary
step to start the president's

trial in that chamber.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: House
Democrats may be too afraid,
too afraid to even transmit

their shoddy work product to
the Senate. Mr. President,
looks like the prosecutors are

getting cold feet in front
of the entire country.

JOHN YANG: Today, Pelosi said
she wouldn't set the wheels
in motion for a Senate trial,

including naming the
House managers who would
prosecute, until she
got assurances that the

rules would be fair.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): The
next thing will be when we see
the process that is set forth

in the Senate. Then we will
know the number of managers
that we may have to go forward

and who -- who we would choose.

JOHN YANG: In the Oval
Office, the president
blasted House Democrats.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the
United States: We think that
what they did is wrong. We think

that what they did is
unconstitutional. And the Senate
is very, very capable. We have

great senators,
Republican senators.

JOHN YANG: The Senate is at
loggerheads over Democratic
leader Chuck Schumer's request

to call trial witnesses.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY):
Leader McConnell is plotting
the most rushed, least thorough,

and most unfair impeachment
trial in modern history.

JOHN YANG: The president's
defenders, like Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Lindsey

Graham of South
Carolina, rejected that.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): If
there's a witness request by
the president, I'm going to say

no. If there's a witness request
by anybody, I'm going to say
no. I want this to end quickly.

JOHN YANG: Today, the president
also got support from a fellow
world leader, Russian President

Vladimir Putin.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian
President (through
translator): The U.S.
Senate will be unlikely

to remove a representative of
their own party from office on
what seems to me an absolutely

far-fetched reason.

REP. NANCY PELOSI:
Article one is adopted.

JOHN YANG: Last night,
as the House impeached
him, President Trump was
rallying his supporters

in Battle Creek, Michigan.

DONALD TRUMP: This lawless,
partisan impeachment
is a political suicide
march for the Democrat

Party.

JOHN YANG: And he sparked
controversy by seeming
to suggest that the
late Michigan lawmaker

John Dingell was
looking up from hell.

The president recounted a
conversation with Representative
Debbie Dingell, John Dingell's

widow, about memorials
after his death.

DONALD TRUMP: She calls
me up. It's the nicest
thing that's ever happened.
Thank you so much.

John would be so thrilled. He's
looking down. He would be so
thrilled. Thank you so much,

sir.

I said, that's OK.
Don't worry about it.

Maybe he's looking
up. I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

JOHN YANG: Tomorrow,
Congress begins a two-week
holiday recess, returning
to the Capitol and

any future action on
impeachment in the new year.

This evening, Senate leaders
McConnell and Schumer met
for an hour to talk about the

impeachment trial. McConnell
said they had a cordial
conversation, but remained at an

impasse.

Now, just what is House
Speaker Pelosi trying
to do by threatening
to delay the process,

and what are the
rules about this?

Michael Conway was counsel
to the House Judiciary
Committee in the impeachment
inquiry of President

Nixon in the 1970s.

Mr. Conway, thanks so
much for joining us.

MICHAEL CONWAY, Former
House Judiciary Committee
Counsel: My pleasure.

JOHN YANG: First of all, what
are the rules? What -- when
does -- or does the speaker ever

have to transmit these articles
of impeachment, or could she
hold on this them forever?

MICHAEL CONWAY: Well, she
could hold on to them forever,
at great political risk.

The Constitution says
sole power only twice.
It says the House has the
sole power of impeachment.

The Senate has the sole power
of trying the impeachment. Until
she lets go of the articles

of impeachment, Nancy Pelosi can
do with them what she wishes.

And the U.S. Supreme
Court in the early '90s
in a case involving a
federal judge that was

impeached said the courts have
no role whatsoever in regulating
impeachment, either in the House

or the Senate. So there's no
other recourse the senators
have if Nancy Pelosi decides

to hold onto the articles until
there could be a negotiation
about witnesses in the trial.

JOHN YANG: And help us
understand the -- sort of
the political calculus here.

What leverage does this
create by holding on to these
articles of impeachment, by not

triggering the trial in the
Senate against the president?

MICHAEL CONWAY: Well, you just
played the clip of -- Lindsey
Graham and Mitch McConnell

have also said they want
to have a very abbreviated
trial, no witnesses,
no drama. Let's get it

over with.

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer
don't want to do that. There
are existing rules for prior

impeachments. In 1986, the
Senate had a whole series of
rules you can find on Senate.gov

about impeachment.

And in Bill Clinton's
impeachment, they added
two new resolutions. Those
provided for witnesses.

There were witnesses in
Bill Clinton's impeachment.

If Mitch McConnell followed
the rules that were adopted
unanimously in 1999, there would

be witnesses. But the Senate
has absolute power to change
it. The question is, does

he have 51 votes to do that?

JOHN YANG: Is there a potential
downside, or is there a risk
to what House Speaker Pelosi

is doing?

MICHAEL CONWAY: Of course.
You just heard the Republican
talking point, which is that

the managers now have cold
feet, that they don't want to
send the case to the House.

But I think one of the real
variables here is, how is
President Trump going to react

to this? He's already reacted
to the issue that he's been
impeached. He believes -- and

you just heard his words --
that he -- the Senate will,
he says, exonerate him. That

won't happen, but they can find
him not guilty, acquit him.

If the trial is prolonged, and
he doesn't get that day, he
may actually put some pressure

on McConnell to come to some
agreement about witnesses. And
he's famously said he himself

wants to call Representative
Schiff and others as
witnesses in the trial.

JOHN YANG: This idea of
withholding the articles
from the Senate, it was
floated by professor

- - Harvard Law School
Professor Laurence Tribe.

He got -- the idea was that
you essentially indict the
president, you charged him with

these articles of
impeachment, and you never
give him the opportunity
to -- for the acquittal

in the Senate.

Is that viable?

MICHAEL CONWAY: Well, it may
be viable, but the public
may not think it's fair.

In Robert Mueller's report, he
put a footnote that's -- where
he said that he couldn't take

any action and recommend
whether there should be criminal
charges. And he said that that

would be decided in impeachment.

And one of his rationales was,
the president had no opportunity
to vindicate himself. And

so I think, if the president
really had no opportunity to
vindicate himself, there was

never a trial, I think that
would backfire on the Democrats.

One other thing to think about,
the Democrats have been in
court. They have a hearing on

January 3 on two lawsuits
in the court of appeals in
Washington, one for Don McGahn

to testify, one for the
grand jury material.

Their whole rationale is, it's
part of an impeachment inquiry.
So, what are the Democrats

going to say on January 3?
Is the impeachment inquiry
still going on? Or is it over?

JOHN YANG: And also help us.
We're going to be -- people
are going to be hearing a lot

of terms they
haven't heard before.

We heard Speaker Pelosi talking
about appointing House managers.

MICHAEL CONWAY: Right.

JOHN YANG: Who are the
House managers, and
why is that important?

MICHAEL CONWAY: The House
managers are essentially
the prosecutors. They're
very important. They're

members of Congress. They will
go to the Senate. They will
serve as the prosecutors in the

trial.

And I believe a lot of
Democrats would like to have the
designation and the status of

being a House manager, but
it's really a job. It's not an
honorary position. They're going

to have to present the
evidence in the trial, whether
they're witnesses or not.

And the fact that they may not
subpoena new witnesses, they
can still bring the witnesses

who appeared before the
Intelligence Committee,
Ambassador Yovanovitch,
Lieutenant Colonel

Vindman, and others. So they
better be skilled prosecutors,
skilled questioners.

And I think Nancy
Pelosi understands that.

JOHN YANG: And you also
said that the speaker
and also Senator Schumer,
the Democratic leader

in the Senate, want to slow this
process down. They seem to be
racing to get the impeachment

done in the House, but
why would they want to
slow things down now?

MICHAEL CONWAY: Well,
they want a set of ground
rules. They want witnesses.

And I think some Republican
members of the Senate are going
to be under some political

pressure here. If Senator
Schumer asks that these four
witnesses or others -- he wants

John Bolton, he wants Chief of
Staff Mulvaney to be witnesses
and two others. They can ask

Chief Justice Roberts, who
will be presiding over the
Senate trial, to subpoena them.

And the rules provide for
subpoenas in the Senate. That
can be overruled. Chief Justice

Roberts, in a normal
trial, what he says goes,
but not in the Senate.
The Senate, by a majority

vote, can overrule him.

But let's take Republican
senators up for reelection in
hotly contested states like

Colorado or Maine. The question
is going to be, do you want
witnesses or not? A recent

poll shows that 71 percent
of the American public want
the witnesses to testify.

So they're going to have
a tough vote. And whether
Mitch McConnell can
keep his 53 Republicans

in line will be the question.

JOHN YANG: Michael Conway, a
lot of issues we're going to
be talking about for weeks

to come.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHN YANG: Thanks a lot.

MICHAEL CONWAY: You're more
than welcome. Thank you.