Deseret News reporter Matt Brown is in Washington D.C. and will be publishing updates about the trial throughout the day.
March for Life bringing crowds to watch Senate trial
1:20 p.m. MST
The March for Life event tomorrow has attracted larger than normal crowds to see the Senate impeachment trial in person.
The wait was more than two hours to spend 20 minutes watching the historic trial from the public gallery, according to Capitol Visitor Center staff and a few people waiting in line.
Mimi Burke, a high school teacher in Maryland, wasn’t in town for the march but for her government class students.
“It’s a historic event that’s very interesting to me and my students,” she said. “We are studying about it right now.”
But Matt and Sue Frieden, farmers from Illinois, are in Washington for the march and came to have an impact, not just watch.
“I believe the atmosphere will change,” Matt Frieden said. The couple are Christians who believe they carry Jesus Christ’s light within them and that will be felt by others while they are in the Senate chamber.
Senate impeachment trial not ready for prime time
10:45 a.m. MST
Some cable networks are airing gavel-to-gavel coverage of the third presidential impeachment trial in American history, but apparently major networks don’t think the spectacle is ready for prime time.
One the first night of arguments in favor of President Donald Trump’s removal from office, ABC, CBS and NBC all stuck with regularly scheduled programs like “Chicago Med,” “Criminal Minds” and “Modern Family” Wednesday evening.
CNN and MSNBC carried the trial in full. Fox News Channel, after showing Rep. Adam Schiff speak for about a half hour, interrupted for a story about a child support case involving former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, and never returned, Associated Press reported.
Lee says he finds sitting through hours of arguments ‘interesting’
10:00 a.m. MST
Utah Sen. Mike Lee may have made up his mind that Trump is not guilty of an impeachable defense, but he doesn’t seem to mind sitting through hours of arguments by House Democrat impeachment managers.
“I think most of my colleagues like to complain about the fact that they’re long and painful and it certainly can be painful to sit there for that long at a time,” the Utah Republican told KSL radio. “But it is good I think that the American people were having a chance to hear these arguments presented. And I do find it interesting much as I find the case itself utterly lacking in any impeachable conduct.”
What the polls are saying about impeachment and the trial
8:00 a.m. MST
The latest Associated Press-NORC Center poll found the public overall is slightly more likely to say the Senate should convict and remove Trump from office than to say it should not, 45% to 40%. But 14% say they don’t know enough to have an opinion.
And the televised trial likely won’t change the minds of those who do have an opinion. Three-quarters say it’s not very likely or not at all likely that the trial will introduce new information that would change their minds. Read more about that poll here.
A Pew Research Center poll found a similarly divided America when it comes to whether their president should be removed from office, with 51% saying the trial should result in conviction and removal and 46% saying it shouldn’t.
“As was the case in public views of the House’s impeachment inquiry in the fall, the public does not express much confidence in either party to be ‘fair and reasonable’ during the Senate trial,” Pew said.
Milk: It does the greatest deliberative body in the world good
7:00 a.m. MST
That’s the lead to a clever and entertaining story by CNN about the beverage of choice among a few senators during the Senate impeachment trial.
Water is allowed on the Senate floor by rule. So, how did milk get introduced to the menu?
Click here to find out.