Better Know the Impeachment Process 11.24.19

The final role of the House of Representatives is to appoint “managers” to present in the Senate the case for conviction and removal on the Articles of Impeachment. The House, in effect, is the prosecuting party at the Senate trial, and the managers are the House’s counsel. 

Black, Charles L., Jr. & Bobbitt, Philip, Impeachment: A Handbook, New Edition (p. 10). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition. 

This is a brief quote but a crucial subject. The appointed representatives of the House (and the text discusses how they may be chosen) make the case for removal from office. At this point, the president has been impeached and the issue is removal from office. In the current impeachment investigation, if the House votes to impeach (which I consider likely), then the managers appointed by the House will act as prosecutors in the Senate trial. I anticipate House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff will be one of the appointees. I anticipate his chief counsel, Daniel Goldman will serve in some capacity as well. Both the Chairman and his Counsel have conducted themselves quite well during the hearings and both appear to know their case and the issues quite well (a crucial ingredient of their success). The choice of case managers in the Senate trial will prove one of the crucial tactical decisions in the impeachment process. The case managers will have to attempt to persuade 2/3 of the Senate, which means that they would have to persuade a bunch of Republican senators to abandon the party line. But of greater importance will be the task of proving to the American people the validity of their case. If they do this, they could fail to remove the president by impeachment, but nevertheless prevent his reelection in the fall.