WASHINGTON _ The House Rules Committee provided a glimpse at how heated impeachment debate may get on the floor later this week, as lawmakers hashed out established arguments on the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump in a Tuesday meeting that could drag into the night.
Judiciary Committee member and constitutional scholar Jamie Raskin, D-Md., took the lead in advocating for the articles, stepping in for Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, whose wife had a medical emergency in New York.
The Rules Committee, known for its lengthy meetings and party-line votes, will establish how much debate time the House will spend on the two articles against Trump, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. It could also structure votes to allow lawmakers to vote on each article separately, rather than as a package.
Raskin, who serves on both the Rules and Judiciary panels, sat beside Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, at the witness table in the tiny Rules Committee room, where they offered divergent takes on the president's conduct that spurred the impeachment inquiry.
The Democrats' case is centered on the allegation that Trump leveraged a White House meeting and military aid to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter while Ukraine faced continued military aggression from Russia.
"We present you not just with high crimes and misdemeanors, but a constitutional crime in progress up to this very minute," Raskin said.
Collins argued that Democrats based their impeachment case on their preexisting dislike for the president and cherry-picked evidence to support their position.
Collins questioned why the articles of impeachment were even at the Rules Committee, citing Speaker Nancy Pelosi's statements earlier this year saying that impeachment should be overwhelmingly bipartisan and that previous articles were debated under a unanimous consent request.
The articles written for President Bill Clinton in 1998 bypassed the House Rules panel and went to the House floor as a privileged resolution from the Judiciary Committee. The House then moved forward with a unanimous consent agreement that allowed for two days of debate in which nearly all members participated.
Earlier this month, House Republicans wrote in a public letter that they planned to use "every parliamentary tool available to us in committees and the House floor in order to highlight your inaction."
"I'm not sure in light of this letter that we could get a unanimous consent request with regard to these proceedings to break for a cup of coffee, never mind determine the rules of engagement," House Rules Chairman Jim McGovern said, adding that the deal struck during the Clinton case would be impossible today.
Democrats hold a 9-4 majority on the Rules panel, whose members are selected by party leaders, ensuring it approves floor rules that reflect the wishes of leadership.
The holiday spirit was largely absent from the meeting, aside from Collins comparing the Democrats' efforts to pin allegations on Trump to "last-minute Christmas shopping."
"They ran and found something and said, 'We can do it,'" he said of the charges contained in the articles of impeachment.
McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the ultimate vote on impeachment will be a personal "vote of conscience" for lawmakers, echoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi's language and stance against whipping Democratic votes for the articles.
"Moments like this call for more than just reflexive partisanship. They require honesty. And they require courage," McGovern said. "Are any Republicans today willing to muster that strength to say that what this president did was wrong?"
