Le feuilleton ne fait que commencer, et chaque jour, une nouvelle information apparaît. Johnny Depp et Amber Heard divorcent. L’actrice accuse celui qui a partagé sa vie pendant quatre années, et été son mari pendant 15 mois, de violences conjugales. Vendredi, un tribunal de Los Angeles a interdit à l’acteur de Pirates de caraïbes d’approcher à moins de 100 mètres de sa future ex-épouse.

Elle a fourni un dossier de 40 pages pour justifier ses accusations de violences. Amber Heard, le visage marqué, affirme depuis quelques jours que Johnny Depp, son mari 15 mois durant, a souvent été violent avec elle, « agressif », et « paranoïaque », du fait de sa consommation de drogues et d’alcool. Elle affirme également avoir été battue par Johnny Depp samedi dernier, deux jours avant qu’elle ne se rende dans un tribunal de Los Angeles pour demander le divorce.

Ce vendredi, un juge de Los Angeles, a interdit formellement à l’acteur d’approcher à moins de 100 mètres de la jeune femme, jusqu’au 17 juin. Il semble accorder du crédit à la version de la jeune femme, selon laquelle Johnny Depp lui ferait peur. Elle aurait décrit de nombreuses disputes extrêmement violentes, où l’acteur lui aurait « tiré les cheveux » à maintes reprises, l’aurait frappée avec son téléphone, et l’aurait menacée avec des bouteilles d’alcool. Cette ordonnance semble accordée pour rassurer l’actrice de 31 ans. D’après TMZ, elle aurait également demandé une ordonnance du même type pour protéger son chien Pistol, mais celle-ci lui aurait été refusée.

L’une des avocates de Depp, Laura Wasser, semble accepter sans sourciller cette décision. Son client est actuellement en tournée de promotion de son nouveau film Alice de l’autre côté du miroir, et n’était pas présent à l’audience ce vendredi. Ses porte-paroles ne commentent toujours pas « les fausses informations, ragots, et mensonges sur sa vie personnelle ».

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Rien pour l’instant ne vient étayer sa version des faits. La police dépêchée au domicile des époux ce samedi n’avait pas noté de marques de violences. Dans un communiqué, la police de Los Angeles explique ne « pas avoir remarqué » de traces de coups, et les enquêteurs ont « estimé qu’aucun crime n’avait été commis ».

Mais le combat judiciaire ne fait que commencer. Si la version d’Amber Heard devait être prouvée, elle pourrait s’avérer accablante pour l’ancien sex-symbol, et peut-être avoir raison de la poursuite de sa carrière à Hollywood.

J-5 avant la diffusion du gala du Marrakech du rire sur M6. Pour fêter ça, Gala vous propose chaque jour l’interview de personnalités amies de Jamel Debbouze, le créateur de ce festival. Aujourd’hui : Marc-Antoine Le Bret.

Sous ses airs de jeune homme de bonne famille se cache un véritable boute-en-train qui pourrait bien être la nouvelle sensation du Paf. Marc-Antoine Le Bret officie aux Guignols de l’info sur Canal +, sur Europe 1 mais aussi dans On n’est pas couché sur France 2 en tant qu’imitateur. Drôle et décalé, il a à son répertoire plusieurs dizaines de voix, imitant aussi bien Cyril Hanouna que Vincent Cassel mais aussi des sportifs et des hommes politiques. Il a participé pour la première fois cette année au gala du « Marrakech du rire ».

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), while introducing House managers for the impeachment trial of President Trump in the Senate, cautions, “What is at stake here is the Constitution of the United States.”

WASHINGTON — 

With a solemn procession through the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday, the House took the final, formal steps to pave the way for the third presidential impeachment trial in the nation’s history.

But even before Thursday’s swearing-in ceremonies could get underway, freshly appointed House managers were predicting that newly released evidence against President Trump — with more possibly to come — would complicate Republican hopes of reaching a speedy conclusion.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) told The Times he expects new evidence to come out during the course of the Senate trial, adding a possible element of surprise to the proceedings.

“There’s going to be new evidence coming out all the time. And if this is conducted like a fair trial, then that new evidence should be admitted. If it’s relevant, if it’s probative, if it sheds light on the guilt or innocence of the president, then it should be admitted,” Schiff said.

Schiff and six other representatives, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), were confirmed in a largely party line vote as the de facto prosecutors in the trial.

The vote cleared the way for the impeachment articles — passed by the House on Dec. 18 — to be forwarded to the Senate, where pretrial proceedings are expected to start Thursday morning.

Trump was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to his pressuring of Ukraine to investigate his political rivals as he withheld nearly $400 million in U.S. aid to the country.

Some Senate Republicans have indicated they think the scope of evidence weighed by the Senate should be limited to the evidence gathered during the House investigation. But Schiff predicted that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would run into difficulty if he attempted to block new information.

“It will be hard, I think, for the senators to ignore new and probative evidence,” Schiff said. “What are they going to say? ‘We’re not going to look at that. We don’t want to see it.’ … So there are limits I think to the ability of Sen. McConnell to prevent meaningful evidence from being considered.”

Schiff did not say if he knew of particular evidence that the managers planned to reveal. But in the last few weeks, since the House voted for impeachment, Democrats say there have been several new developments and disclosures that bolster their case, including an offer by former national security advisor John Bolton to testify and the release to the House Intelligence Committee of documents related to the actions of Trump loyalists in Ukraine, including Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, and his indicted associate Lev Parnas.

In an interview Wednesday on MSNBC, Parnas told Rachel Maddow, “President Trump knew exactly what was going on. He was aware of all my movements. I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani, or the president.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) announced earlier Wednesday her choice of House managers: Nadler, Schiff, Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Val Demings (D-Fla.) and Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas). Schiff, a former prosecutor, was tapped to lead the group.

“The emphasis is on litigators. The emphasis is on comfort level in the courtroom,” Pelosi said in describing the legal experience her choices brought to the proceedings.

The managers will give opening and closing statements, lay out the facts collected in the House investigation and potentially will cross-examine witnesses.

“The task before us is a grave one, but one demanded by our oath,” Schiff said on the House floor before the vote. “The House managers will take the case to the Senate and to the American people.”

The House of Representatives confirmed the managers by a vote of 228-193. Rep. Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota was the only Democrat to vote against the resolution.

All of the managers come from strong liberal-leaning districts or won their most recent race by a wide margin, prompting calls of overt partisanship. “It just looks very politically bent to me,” said Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.).

Perdue suggested that one of the managers, Crow from Colorado, was selected largely to focus public attention in Colorado to the trial and therefore pressure Sen. Cory Gardner, one of the most vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection in 2020.

Pelosi’s office noted that Crow is a litigator, Army veteran and co-chairman of the House Democratic Caucus’ national security task force. He is the only House manager not on one of the two major committees that handled the impeachment.

Pelosi was said to be aiming for a more diverse group than the 13 white men who acted as House managers during the Clinton impeachment trial in 1999.

It’s a role that can make or break careers, and there was lobbying behind the scenes as members jostled for one of the plum positions. Pelosi decided how many managers to choose. After the Clinton trial, some of the Republican House managers faced a backlash; at least one lost his reelection bid — in an odd twist of fate, he lost to Schiff.

The managers marched across the Capitol building Wednesday to notify the Senate that the articles of impeachment passed by the House in December were ready to be delivered. The procession came after a signing ceremony in which Pelosi handed out pens she used to sign the historic document. Upon arrival, the House clerk formally announced the delivery of the impeachment articles.

McConnell said that the Senate would receive the House managers at noon Thursday, and that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. would be summoned at 2 p.m. to begin presiding over the proceeding. The Senate is tasked with weighing whether the allegations warrant conviction and Trump’s removal from office.

Arguments from the House managers and the White House lawyers could begin as soon as Tuesday, after senators vote to establish a set of rules and procedures.

Republicans control the Senate, and with 67 votes required to remove a president from office, it is all but certain Trump will be acquitted.

“President Trump has done nothing wrong. He looks forward to having the due-process rights in the Senate that Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats denied to him, and expects to be fully exonerated,” White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

Trump, during a White House signing ceremony for a trade deal between the U.S. and China, pointed to a couple of attorneys in attendance and joked that he might need their services.

“I could use some good lawyers, right?” Trump said. “Ah, the hell with it. I just have to suffer along with it like I have all my life.”

Times staff writer Eli Stokols contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON — 

The impeachment of President Trump is the Senate’s challenge now.

Directed by the Constitution, House officials and prosecutors somberly carried the articles through the dimly lighted Capitol to the Senate on Wednesday evening, triggering a trial unlike any since President Bill Clinton’s in 1999. He was acquitted.

Look Thursday for a series of ceremonial matters that will set up the Senate as a court of impeachment. Oaths will be taken. An oath book will be signed. And the seven House prosecutors, called managers, appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi will make an appearance in the well of the Senate to present the articles.

Then the senators will be commanded to surrender their phones and pay attention and not to talk — a whole other level of challenge, especially for the four Democrats running for president ahead of the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses.

Here’s what to watch for when the Senate opens for impeachment business:

House members in the Senate

At noon Thursday, the seven House managers will cross the Capitol and be escorted into the well of the Senate, this time to formally present the articles of impeachment. They charge Trump with abuse of power by pressuring Ukraine to help him politically and obstructing Congress’ probe into what happened.

Impeachment inquiry

The prosecution team is led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff of California and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York, who oversaw the impeachment investigation and hearings. The others are Reps. Zoe Lofgren of California, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Val Demings of Florida, Jason Crow of Colorado and Sylvia Garcia of Texas.

All have a background in the law. Their challenge is to persuade four Republicans to join all Senate Democrats in demanding that the trial include new documents and witnesses that most of the GOP senators would like to avoid. Even that modest goal could prove difficult.

Watch for the managers to start dividing up topics and arguments as the team prepares to lay out its case.

Oaths

In another extraordinary visual, Chief Justice John G. Roberts will make an appearance in the chamber. Senate Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) will administer Roberts’ oath as the court’s presiding officer. Roberts, in turn, will swear in the senators, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.

‘Impartial justice’

The senators will swear to administer “impartial justice” on the articles, or charges. But already, the senator-jurors are questioning whether that’s possible.

McConnell has given his flat-out answer.

“I’m not an impartial juror,” he declared last month. The process is inherently political.

He also said he was coordinating tightly with the White House, a statement Democrats said was proof of McConnell’s partiality. Republicans, meanwhile, have pointed out that Democrats have widely spoken of their disdain for Trump and cast doubt on his fitness for office.

Late Wednesday, McConnell laid out how he saw the challenge for senators.

“We will pledge to rise above the petty factionalism and do justice for our institutions, for our states and for the nation,” he said.

The Senate math

100: The total number of senators.

53: The Republican majority.

51: The number of senators who must agree on almost anything to make it happen during an impeachment trial.

4: The number of Republican senators who must join Democrats to get to the magical 51.

2/3: The proportion of senators required to convict and remove a president from office. So 67 members of the Senate would have to vote to convict if every senator was voting.

The moderate gang

Watch the moderates for an emerging gang of three to four who could influence the outcome on such matters as whether to subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton. That vote won’t be taken for days, if not weeks.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has been meeting with a small number of GOP colleagues who want to consider witness testimony and documents that aren’t part of the House impeachment investigation. Watch Republican Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for signs of whether this group can stick together and force the Senate to consider additional material.

The suffering candidates

Senators love to talk. So the impeachment-trial rule against speaking or consulting phones on the Senate floor has the potential to chafe.

The ones who may suffer by that rule most, however, are the four Democratic senators forced to decamp from Iowa less than three weeks before the election’s lead-off caucuses. Look for Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Michael Bennet of Colorado to send surrogates to Iowa or make short trips back and forth.

“I’ve told them this trial is your responsibility as senators and scheduling is not going to influence what we should do,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told The Associated Press in an interview last month. He said none of them objected. “There are benefits of running as a senator,” Schumer added, “and there are liabilities.”

Full swing

The Senate is pausing for the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend.

Arguments begin Tuesday.

Trump’s team will be led by White House counsel Pat Cippolone.

WASHINGTON — 

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will almost certainly try to keep a low profile in the upcoming impeachment trial of President Trump.

But given the lack of a bipartisan agreement in the Senate, Roberts may find himself nevertheless called upon to weigh in on the most difficult questions, including whether witnesses will testify.

For only the third time in U.S. history, the chief justice will carry out one of the special duties assigned to him by the Constitution. The framers of 1787 foresaw that the vice president, who usually presides over the Senate, would have a clear conflict of interest because he would assume the highest office if the president were convicted by two-thirds of the senators.

On Thursday, Roberts was formally escorted into the Senate chamber to be sworn in as presiding officer and to administer the oath to all 100 senators. Most legal experts expect the rest of his role will be similarly ceremonial, rather than a pivotal one in shaping the trial. Neither the Constitution nor historic precedents make clear how the “presiding officer” should conduct an impeachment trial.

On the one hand, the Senate “shall have the sole power to try all impeachments,” according to the Constitution, and this includes setting rules for the trial as well as making the ultimate decision on the president’s guilt.

At the same time, the Senate’s long-standing rules say “the presiding officer shall have the power to make and issue” orders for conducting the trial, and he “may rule on all questions of evidence, including but not limited to questions of relevance [and] materiality.”

The senators, by majority vote, can settle many procedural questions in advance by passing a rules package that spells out when a trial begins, how long it will last, how much time each side has and what evidence can be offered, including witnesses. During the Clinton impeachment, both sides agreed on such a pretrial rules package, which among other things determined that the question of witnesses would be postponed until after the trial was underway.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said that he is prepared to begin Senate proceedings without an agreement with Democrats on key issues, such as witnesses. He said he has enough GOP votes to approve rules that would put off any decision about witnesses until after the trial is underway, something Democrats oppose.

If that happens, expect Democrats to turn to long-standing Senate impeachment rules that give the chief justice authority to decide, at least in the first instance, questions “with respect to the admission of evidence.” Among other things, House managers are likely to ask Roberts to require testimony from former national security advisor John Bolton.

But there’s an important caveat. The chief justice’s “ruling shall stand as the judgment of the Senate,” the rules say, unless a senator asks for a vote to overturn his decision. In other words, any senator can demand that any of the chief justice’s rulings be put to a floor vote, and a simple majority can overrule that decision. For that reason, the chief justice lacks the most basic power of other judges, because his rulings effectively can be overturned by the jury.

The rules give the chief justice a way to avoid such an embarrassing rebuff. Rather than decide a contentious matter when asked, the presiding officer can essentially punt. The same rule goes on to say the presiding officer “may at his option, in the first instance, submit any such question to a vote” of the Senate.

For guidance on his role, Roberts has only two precedents to study: the 1868 trial of President Andrew Johnson, when Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase was in the chair, and the 1999 trial of President Clinton, when Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist presided.

Chase was a former senator, governor and past presidential contender, and he had his eye on the presidency again in 1868. He was criticized then and by historians since for seeking to dominate the Senate trial, even breaking a tie vote when senators were split on an issue.

Rehnquist, if anything, erred in the other direction. In 1992, he had written a history of the failed impeachments of Johnson and early Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, and he concluded both would have damaged the independence of the high court and the presidency had they succeeded. He took a minimal role in the Clinton trial and left it to the senators to shape the proceedings.

“I did nothing in particular, and I did it well,” Rehnquist said afterward, quoting a Gilbert and Sullivan character.

At first glance, it would appear that Rehnquist would serve as the model for a chief justice who wants to avoid partisan conflict.

Roberts, who will turn 65 this month, first arrived in Washington 40 years ago to work as a law clerk for then-Associate Justice Rehnquist. He had grown up in Indiana, excelled in college and law school at Harvard and spent a year as a law clerk for a prominent appeals court judge in New York.

He developed a deep admiration for Rehnquist, who helped launch his career as a lawyer in the incoming Reagan administration and later as a leading advocate in the Supreme Court. When Rehnquist died in 2005, Roberts succeeded him as chief justice.

Yale law professor Akhil Amar said Roberts will almost surely be guided by Rehnquist’s hands-off approach.

“He will have studied the Rehnquist precedent, and he doesn’t want this to be about him,” Amar said. “He’s a Republican’s Republican, but he doesn’t see himself as a hyper-partisan. He’s perceived as neutral. If the Senate is equally divided, he has some running room, but I would be very surprised if the chief justice tries to take over the show. If it turns into a partisan fight where everyone is throwing mud, he will do the smart thing, which is to duck.”

Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, said Roberts could be “put in a terrible position.” As chief justice, he has tried to keep the Supreme Court separate from politics and the partisan battles of Washington, but he could be easily drawn into such a fight.

Nonetheless, she said, “he has a vested interest in presiding over a fair trial because he realizes how this could influence how the public perceives the high court.”

Sarah A. Binder, a Brookings Institution expert on Congress, said the rules for an impeachment trial put power in the hands of the senators, not the presiding officer. “I don’t get the sense that Roberts wants to be making pivotal decisions,” she said. “And any senator can challenge and immediately secure a vote to challenge one of his rulings.”

It is not clear, however, whether McConnell can count on all of the Senate’s 53 Republicans to vote together, particularly on such things as whether to hear testimony from witnesses. “Ultimately, the powerful player here is whoever makes that 51st vote to uphold or overturn a Roberts decision,” she said.

Others say Roberts may play a pivotal role because the Senate is so closely split.

“He would probably like to play the Rehnquist role, but then there was an agreement in advance” by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate, said former White House counsel Neil Eggleston, who worked on Clinton’s defense in the 1999 trial. Those bipartisan agreements settled most of the key questions in the trial, avoiding the need for Rehnquist to get involved.

“This time it will not be resolved in advance. And the rules give the chief justice a lot of power to rule on evidence, which includes calling witnesses,” Eggleston said.

Senators, he said, may be reluctant to use their power to challenge his decisions. “They could overrule the chief justice, but that would not look good,” Eggleston added.

Georgetown law professor David A. Super agreed that Roberts might find himself in a tough spot, trying to balance his responsibilities as a judge with his desire to stay out of controversy.

“If the House managers ask for subpoenas, that is a routine decision for a trial judge,” Super said. “I think he would not want to be perceived as undermining the trial by avoiding a decision. If he ducked a decision, it could look like he was part of McConnell’s effort to coordinate with the White House.

“I also think he takes very seriously the Constitution’s allocations of power,” Super said, “and the framers made him the presiding officer in an impeachment trial.”

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KYIV, Ukraine — 

Ukrainian police said Thursday they have opened an investigation into the possibility that the U.S. ambassador came under illegal surveillance by an unknown party before she was recalled from her post in May.

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The announcement came two days after Democratic lawmakers in the United States released a trove of documents that showed Lev Parnas, an associate of President Trump’s personal lawyer, communicating about the removal of Marie Yovanovitch as the ambassador to Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry, which runs the police forces, said in a statement that Ukrainian police “are not interfering in the internal political affairs of the United States.”

“However, the published messages contain facts of possible violations of Ukrainian law and of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, which protect the rights of diplomats on the territory of another state,” the statement continued.

“Our goal is to investigate whether there actually was a violation of Ukrainian and international law, which could be the subject for proper reaction. Or whether it is just bravado and fake information in the informal conversation between two U.S. citizens,” the ministry said.

The Interior Ministry also said it has requested that the FBI provide relevant materials. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov “suggested that the U.S. side take part in the investigation,” the statement said

In another move touching on the Trump impeachment, Ukraine said it was opening an investigation into reports that Russian hackers gained access to computers of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

Hunter Biden, the son of Trump opponent and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, was on the board of that company. The impeachment inquiry began with allegations that Trump had tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy into investigating Burisma and the Bidens by withholding promised military aid.

The FBI has been invited to take part in the Burisma hacking investigation, the ministry said.

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House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving leads the seven House managers, Reps. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Val Demings (D-Fla.) and Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), to the Senate chamber. 

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

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Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., center, arrives at the Senate to swear in lawmakers for President Trump’s impeachment trial.  

(Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA-Shutterstock)

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Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) swears in Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as the presiding officer for the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump.  

(Senate Television )

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Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. swears in members of the Senate for President Trump’s impeachment trial.  

(Senate Television)

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Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) signs the oath book after being sworn in for President Trump’s impeachment trial.  

(Senate Television)

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A Capitol Police officer waits for the arrival of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.  

(Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

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Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks to reporters.  

(Julio Cortez / Associated Press)

WASHINGTON — 

For only the third time in American history, the Senate on Thursday began considering articles of impeachment to determine whether the president should be removed from office.

Despite the partisan nature of the House’s inquiry last month and a simmering debate over whether the Senate should subpoena witnesses in the trial, the sense of history and gravity struck lawmakers of both parties as the trial began with a choreographed ceremony. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was sworn in to preside, and he in turn asked lawmakers to take an oath to deliver “impartial justice.”

“When the chief justice walked in, you could feel the weight of the moment,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “The eyes of history, you felt it, are upon you.”

President Trump was impeached by the House in December for asking Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, his potential 2020 political rival, as he withheld nearly $400 million in U.S. aid from the country.

A nonpartisan government watchdog agency concluded Thursday that the administration violated federal law by withholding the congressionally approved money. The law “does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the Government Accountability Office said.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) called the report a “bombshell legal opinion” that “demonstrates, without a doubt, that the Trump administration illegally withheld security assistance from Ukraine.”

Republicans stressed that the GAO report said the administration’s Office of Management and Budget, not the president, broke the law. The office, known as OMB, is within the executive office of the president. “I think we’re going to hear some more about it,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), “but I don’t think that changes anything.”

Also Thursday, Ukraine announced it was investigating some of the activities of Trump loyalists working there with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney.

Trump on Thursday again dismissed the impeachment proceeding as a Democratic “hoax” and predicted the trial “should go very quickly.” Sixty-seven votes are required to convict and remove him from office, and none of the 53 Senate Republicans has indicated publicly that they’re apt to do so.

The trial will begin in earnest Tuesday when lawmakers debate a resolution to set the rules over how to proceed, including the divisive question of whether to make an upfront commitment to hear from witnesses, or to delay that decision until after arguments.

Republicans say they have the votes required to pass rules over Democratic objections. The GOP rules would punt a decision on witnesses until after the trial has started. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says it would be similar to the process used in President Clinton’s 1999 trial. But that measure had bipartisan support, and this one does not.

Democrats plan to contest the GOP rules and force votes on subpoenaing several Trump administration officials who refused to cooperate with the House’s impeachment inquiry. One, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, has since volunteered to testify in the Senate trial.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is part of a small group of Republicans who have expressed openness to witnesses, said Thursday she is “likely” to support a motion to subpoena witnesses after initial arguments are heard, “just as I did in 1999.” She said she had not made any decisions about what witnesses she would like to hear from.

During Thursday’s relatively short Senate session, 99 senators — Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) was away for family reasons — sat quietly at their desks as Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) read the articles aloud to the Senate. Schiff and six other House Democrats will act as de facto prosecutors.

“We’re participating in something that hasn’t happened very often,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), recalling the 1999 Clinton impeachment trial. “I think many senators have on their mind: Is this the new dynamic? Having two impeachments within 20 years of one another. I don’t think anybody likes that feeling.”

The proceedings got underway amid dramatically heightened security on Capitol Hill. Reporters who can normally roam much of the Capitol to speak with senators were kept behind rope barriers, changes imposed by the Senate sergeant-at-arms and Senate Republican leadership that will make it much easier for lawmakers to escape being questioned by the media.

A coalition of groups that advocate for press freedom and government transparency sent a letter to McConnell criticizing the changes. The rules “will impair [the media’s] ability to report on the impeachment trial proceedings, which are of abiding interest to Americans from across the political spectrum,” said the letter, sent by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 57 other signatories.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), one of four 2020 presidential hopefuls, admitted he would much rather be in Iowa, New Hampshire or another early Democratic primary states, but acknowledged his constitutional responsibility.

While the trial is underway, the Senate is required to meet each day — Monday through Saturday — at 1 p.m. Eastern to hear the case. Senate rules forbid senators from speaking in the chamber. Only the chief justice, majority leader and lawyers are allowed to do so.

Senators are also not supposed to bring reading materials unrelated to the trial or bring electronics into the chamber. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was spotted breaking the ban on cellphones Thursday. Several other senators whispered among themselves.

Debates among senators, such as the one expected Tuesday over the trial rules and whether to call witnesses, must be conducted in closed session. C-SPAN cameras will be shut off so the public will not be able to view the proceedings, although senators will be allowed to share what they heard in the session.

Democrats say a stream of new disclosures about Giuliani’s activities in Ukraine put added pressure on Republicans to allow witnesses.

Ukrainian police announced Thursday that they had opened an investigation into allegations that former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch came under illegal surveillance by Trump loyalists before she was recalled from her post last year.

The announcement followed the release by Democrats of documents showing Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Giuliani, communicating about Yovanovitch’s movements. Parnas has said Trump and Giuliani were both aware of his activities, something Trump denied.

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“I don’t know what he’s about,” Trump said at an event in the Oval Office Thursday about Parnas. “I don’t know where he comes from.”

Trump has appeared in several pictures with Parnas, but said he takes thousands of such pictures as a year at fundraisers and official events.

Trump also responded to a newly disclosed letter from Giuliani, in his capacity as “private counsel to President Donald J. Trump,” demanding to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky before his inauguration as president of Ukraine.

Trump said he “didn’t know about the specific letter, but if he wrote a letter, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.”

Ukraine also said it would look into reports that Russian hackers gained access to computers of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, presumably in an effort to uncover embarrassing information about former Vice President Joe Biden, a possible Trump opponent in the November election. Biden’s son, Hunter, worked as a director for Burisma. Ukrainian officials say there is no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said new information from Parnas should be admitted to the Senate trial.

“Every day new incriminating information comes forward,” she said. “That only speaks very clearly to the need for the Senate to enter the documentation into their discussion.”

Parnas is under indictment in the Southern District of New York for unrelated matters, and his lawyer has suggested he wants immunity in that case, a factor Republicans have already brought up.

Cornyn said he didn’t know if Parnas was credible and it was up to the House managers whether to request to call him as a witness. “I don’t know, he looks kind of like a seamy, shady character to me,” he said.

That sound you may have heard Wednesday morning was that of a heavy truck spinning its wheels, as President Trump signed an agreement with China that imposes a cease-fire in a trade war that has achieved virtually nothing for Americans, except the imposition of enormous economic costs on U.S. consumers, farmers and manufacturers.

At the signing ceremony, Trump called the deal “transformative,” which is surely an exaggeration. The agreement leaves in place most of the tariffs Trump has imposed on Chinese goods since 2018, which means that most of the retaliatory tariffs China has imposed also remain.

Notwithstanding Trump’s mantra that the tariffs are paid by the Chinese, trade experts are virtually unanimous in concluding that they’ve been paid entirely by Americans. As a result, according to recent research by the Federal Reserve, that meant higher prices for U.S. consumers, lower manufacturing growth and the cratering of agricultural exports.

Raj Bhala, University of Kansas

Steep tariffs are “the new normal in the troubled US-China economic relationship,” Chad P. Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics observed last month after the essentials of the deal were first announced.

Even after the agreement, the average U.S. tariff on China imports will still be 19.3%, a modest reduction from the pre-agreement level of 21% and more than six times its level of 3% before Trump launched the tariff war.

Through the deal, China commits to making $200 billion over the next two years in new purchases of agricultural and manufactured goods, services, and crude oil and other energy. But there are widespread doubts that China actually can absorb imports on such a scale. That points to the question of how its commitments can be monitored and enforced.

The agreement incorporates a bilateral enforcement mechanism, but Trump has displayed profound hostility to other international trade enforcement bodies, notably the World Trade Organization, which could have been brought in to oversee China’s compliance.

If China fully complies with all the terms of the deal, that would go a long way to meeting one of Trump’s explicit goals on trade policy — reducing China’s enormous trade surplus with the U.S., which reached a record $323.3 billion in 2018. The surplus fell last year to $295.8 billion largely because of the tariffs, but that was still larger than in any year other than 2018.

But the deal does little to affect the structural imbalance in U.S.-China trade — the inbred factors that prompt Americans to buy more from China than U.S. manufacturers and growers sell there. “This is a managed-trade agreement, not a free-trade agreement,” says Raj Bhala, an international trade expert at the University of Kansas School of Law.

That prompts doubts about how U.S.-China trade will look after the specific commitments expire in two years, especially since the agreement signed Wednesday fails to cover some of the non-tariff trade barriers that keep China’s markets largely closed to U.S. manufacturers and that ostensibly prompted Trump’s trade war in the first place. These include government procurement restrictions and subsidies to state-owned enterprises.

“Not tackling China’s subsidies is a giant hole in the phase one deal,” Bown tweeted after Wednesday’s signing ceremony. “There’s no way to get around it.”

Although the agreement hints at progress on such issues as Chinese theft of technology, it doesn’t address what Bhala calls “21st century intellectual property issues,” such as privacy protections.

Finally, the deal doesn’t touch China’s greater ambitions as an economic player, such as those embodied in its “Made in China 2025″ 10-year plan unveiled in 2015. The plan calls for China to become the dominant global force in electric cars, aircraft manufacture, biotechnology, advanced telecommunications, robotics and artificial intelligence.

Administration figures have argued that the costs of the trade war are short-term, and that over time it will yield gains in employment and national security. Economists are doubtful, based on their historical sense that trade wars typically have no winners.

“While the long-run effects are still to be seen,” observed researchers headed by Mary Amiti of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in the first year of the tariffs “the U.S. experienced substantial increases in the prices of intermediates and finished goods, … reductions in availability of imported varieties, and complete passthrough of the tariffs into domestic prices of imported goods.”

To briefly recap the trade war, Trump imposed tariffs on some $360 billion in Chinese goods starting in mid-2018. Most of those tariffs will remain in place in the wake of the agreement, although tariffs on about $112 billion in consumer goods such as clothing and sports equipment will be cut to 7.5% from 15%, and threatened 25% tariffs on an additional $160 billion — including cellphones and computers — will be held in abeyance.

And 25% tariffs remain in effect on the rest of the imports, including raw materials and components used by U.S. manufacturers to make products domestically. Trump says that the remaining tariffs won’t be reconsidered until after the election.

The tariffs not only flowed through to U.S. consumers via higher domestic prices, but they also cost American companies in time and effort to find new suppliers outside China. American exports to China fell because of retaliatory tariffs imposed by Beijing on more than $110 billion in goods such as steel, aluminum and agricultural products. The farm economy was profoundly harmed: For example, purchases of soybeans by China, formerly the leading export partner of U.S. soybean farmers, fell to zero in November 2018.

The costs of the trade war to other sectors also have been significant. The Trump administration has announced roughly $28 billion in emergency aid to farmers affected by the trade war. U.S. taxpayers will foot the bill for those payouts, on top of the higher prices they’re paying for imported and tariff-affected domestic goods. (Most of the agricultural aid, as we’ve reported, goes to wealthy farmers and agribusinesses.)

An estimated $41 billion has been raised from the China tariffs thus far. According to Amiti, “This tariff revenue is a pure transfer from domestic consumers to the government.” That would be tantamount to about two-tenths of 1% of gross domestic product, characterized by Amiti as a “deadweight loss” to the economy.

Plainly, there are sound economic reasons to reconsider the trade war. Those don’t seem to have entered into the administration’s calculations, which appear to be much more focused on politics. Both sides have immense incentives to quell the wartime rhetoric and keep their guns holstered — for the moment. Trump faces an impeachment trial followed by a presidential election, amid signs that economic growth is slowing. The Chinese regime faces civil unrest as well as a slowdown in economic growth.

Once those conditions pass, however, so will the conflicts. As Claire Reade, a former U.S. trade enforcement official, told my colleague Don Lee, “the fundamental tensions between the U.S. and China will not subside, even if the administration has achieved some incremental progress as well as met certain political goals that could calm the relationship for the short term.”

The biggest question raised by the Phase 1 agreement is whether China is serious about its import commitments. Many experts call them “ambitious,” which is a polite way of saying “unlikely.”

Consider the commitment of more than $52 billion in energy imports over two years. China imported about $8 billion a year in crude oil, liquefied natural gas and other energy products from the U.S. in 2017 and 2018, but the trade fell off sharply last year during the trade war.

The agreement suggests that Chinese imports would more than triple, which would be an enormous ramp-up, considering that the country has other import sources and is also trying to develop domestic exploration. In any case, American crude is different from the feedstock that China’s refineries are designed to use.

Ironically, for all that the administration is touting the agreement as one that “rights the wrongs of the past,” as Trump put it at the signing ceremony, it may well knit the two countries closer together in an uncomfortable interdependent relationship. American manufacturers and growers may become dependent on the import target written into the deal — increasing their risks if they ramp up to meet a Chinese demand that could disappear after the deal’s expiration.

The U.S. remains China’s largest single export market, and China is America’s largest supplier of imported goods. Trump’s trade war hasn’t changed that yet, nor has it seemed to alter the trajectory of the trade relationship for the future. He has just made it more expensive.

WASHINGTON — 

Congress gave final approval to the new North American trade accord Thursday, with the Republican-controlled Senate moving swiftly during President Trump’s impeachment proceedings to hand him one of his biggest wins since occupying the White House.

There was never any doubt that the Senate would pass the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement after the House overwhelmingly approved it last month in rare bipartisan fashion.

The only question was by how much, and when it would reach the Senate floor. In the last few days Republican leaders pushed the legislation quickly through several committees, started floor debate Wednesday by unanimous consent and held a roll call Thursday morning before members of the Senate were sworn in as jurors for Trump’s impeachment trial.

The vote was 89 to 10, with one Republican, eight Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for president, voting no.

“There was a lot of momentum to get USMCA done and behind the administration before things could get really bogged down with impeachment and frankly the campaign season,” said Daniel Ujczo, a trade lawyer at the Dickinson Wright firm who has been closely tracking the trade measure.

Final Senate action on USMCA, which replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement, came just a day after Trump signed a partial trade deal with China. The deals fulfill two of Trump’s major campaign pledges, although the final agreements achieve far less than Trump promised.

However, the two agreements have significantly eased trade tensions that had darkened the economy over the last two years. Trump slapped multiple tariffs on China during an 18-month trade war, and repeatedly threatened to withdraw from NAFTA if Canada and Mexico did not make concessions.

Trump had long slammed NAFTA as a “disaster” for American industry and workers. In that way he shared the disdain that many Democrats and labor groups have had of NAFTA and free-trade pacts generally, viewing them as job killers. As a candidate, Trump promised to do away with the quarter-century-old pact or rewrite it.

Canada and Mexico are the United States’ top trading partners, with three-way trade in goods reaching about $1.3 trillion.

The three countries began renegotiating NAFTA in the summer of 2017, and the parties concluded talks in September 2018.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and other Democratic leaders, however, would not allow the trade bill to move forward until the administration agreed to strengthen enforcement of labor rules and make several other changes to the original deal. The House approved the accord 385 to 41 on Dec. 19, the last legislative working day of the year.

While the final Senate vote was almost a formality, individual lawmakers still had plenty to say.

Speaking in the Senate chamber, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who chairs the Finance Committee, talked at length about the benefits of the USMCA and said it was a shame that it took so long for ratification, which he blamed on “partisan roadblocks.”

California’s two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, went separate ways on the bill.

Feinstein, who voted against NAFTA in 1993, said in a statement that she was in favor of the USMCA, calling it an improvement over NAFTA and one that would be good for the nation and California. Feinstein cited as an example the $300 million allotted to clean up pollution from the Tijuana River.

Harris, however, said it was precisely because of shortcomings in the environment chapter that she could not vote for USMCA. The accord doesn’t address climate change, she said, and as such “fails to meet the crises of this moment.”

USMCA drew opposition from leading environmental advocacy groups such as the Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council. Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said he would vote against the bill “because it does not address climate change, the greatest threat facing our planet.”

Business and labor union groups were mostly supportive of the agreement, although they were hardly effusive about it.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce expressed disappointment that the administration, under Democratic pressure, stripped out a provision that would have given 10 years of exclusive market protections for certain drugs. The chamber argued that USMCA should not be a model for future trade deals, although that is exactly what U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said it would be.

Still, the chamber and other groups like it saw USMCA as better than the possible alternative of losing NAFTA, which would have caused major disruptions in supply chains and tariff-free trade in North America.

Estimates of USMCA’s economic impact vary, but on the whole most don’t see it as having a major effect on the U.S. economy. NAFTA already had done away with most tariffs in North American trade.

NAFTA had 22 chapters. USMCA contains 34 chapters, 13 annexes and 16 side letters. They include new rules and standards on digital trade, state-owned enterprises and currency matters.

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USMCA pries open Canada’s closed dairy market. It raises the minimum North American content for cars to receive tariff-free treatment and for the first time links auto production to workers’ pay, in the hopes of curbing the movement of jobs to low-wage Mexico.

The new accord largely does away with a provision allowing foreign firms to sue governments for discrimination or breaking contracts, which critics viewed as a corporate handout and incentive for offshoring.

Most other provisions in NAFTA were maintained or updated to reflect changes in the economy over the last three decades.

Mexico already has ratified USMCA. The Canadian Parliament is expected to approve it later this month. The new agreement will most likely take force in late spring.

WASHINGTON — 

A generation ago, the Senate considered a question that had not been posed in 131 years: whether to remove a president from office. Just 20 years later, that fraught question is before senators again.

There are key differences between this trial of the impeached President Trump and that of Bill Clinton. In 1999, a Republican-controlled Congress moved against a Democratic president and Democrats decried Republicans’ calls for witnesses. Now the roles are switched. Twenty years ago, both parties in the Senate worked to craft a bipartisan process that would be seen by Americans as fair and credible. That does not appear to be happening today.

A Democratic-led House is battling not only the Republican president, but also the Republicans who run the Senate, with no signs of bipartisan agreement on any of the major disputes. And both sides have attacked the impartiality of the other, and questioned its procedures.

Many are looking to the 1999 impeachment trial as a model, with each side often focusing on the aspects that best fit their positions today.

Here’s a reminder of how that trial unfolded.

Dec. 19, 1998: At the peak of an exceptionally divisive confrontation between Republicans and Democrats, the House approves two articles of impeachment accusing Clinton of lying under oath and obstructing justice in the investigation of his relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky. It also designates House managers and notifies the Senate of its actions. (In contrast, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi waited several weeks to name the House managers and forward the two articles against Trump to the Senate.)

Dec. 20 to Jan. 5: A flurry of negotiations between Republican and Democratic Senate leaders ensue over the holidays, including talk of censuring Clinton rather than holding a trial and possibly removing him from office. The two sides disagree over whether to call witnesses, and ultimately opt to wait until after opening arguments from the House and the White House before deciding.

Jan. 5: Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) announces Clinton’s trial will begin Jan. 7, but senators continue to wrangle over how long it should be and whether to call witnesses.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), one of the House managers, said they had little idea of what to expect. “Everything is under negotiation. All kinds of rumors are going around. Time is wasting. We need to agree on a format,” Hyde said.

Jan. 6: Representatives and senators return to Washington to convene the 106th Congress, and the House passes a second resolution, to give the House managers authority to act in the new Congress. They again notify the Senate of the impeachment articles.

Jan. 7: Clinton’s trial for perjury and obstruction of justice begins in the Senate with the swearing-in of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to preside and of the senators to sit in judgment.

Hyde leads a procession of the House managers bearing the articles across the Rotunda to the Senate and reads them aloud.

Jan. 8: In a closed-door meeting, the Senate unanimously agrees on a process for continuing the trial, but puts off deciding the sticking point — whether to call witnesses.

The agreement gives the House managers and White House lawyers each 24 hours, spread over several days, to make their respective cases. It allows senators 16 hours to ask questions of each side before voting on whether to dismiss the case or to continue and call witnesses.

(The trial rules have not yet been set for Trump’s trial, reflecting the ongoing disputes. The Senate is expected to consider something Tuesday.)

Jan. 11: Clinton’s defense team denies the charges against the president in a 13-page answer to a Senate summons. House managers submit a pretrial memo outlining their case.

(Trump has until Saturday evening to respond to the Senate summons issued Thursday. House managers must also submit their pretrial brief Saturday evening.)

Jan. 13: Clinton’s lawyers file their pretrial brief outlining their case for the president’s acquittal. Clinton tells reporters he wants to focus on the nation’s business, not the trial. “They have their job to do in the Senate, and I have mine,” Clinton says. “And I intend to do it.”

(Trump’s lawyers have until noon Monday to file their brief. The House managers get until noon Tuesday to file a rebuttal.)

Jan. 14: Thirteen House managers begin a three-day opening statement arguing to convict Clinton and remove him from office.

Jan. 19: Clinton’s legal team begins its three-day opening statement. While the lawyers had been expected to call for dismissing the articles, White House Counsel Charles Ruff makes a detailed, point-by-point rebuttal of the case against Clinton, focusing both narrowly on the facts of the Lewinsky scandal and broadly on the Constitution’s standard for impeachment.

“We think there are significant holes in the House case, as well as many overreaching characterizations,” said Jim Kennedy, a Clinton spokesman. “We will challenge the allegations by going through the entire record.”

That evening, Clinton delivers the nationally televised State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress.

Jan. 22: The senators begin questioning the prosecution and defense teams, passing their written questions to Rehnquist.

Jan. 23: A judge orders Lewinsky to cooperate with House prosecutors. She returns to Washington from California.

Jan. 24: Lewinsky submits to a nearly two-hour interview with House managers, who left the meeting saying she is “impressive” and “personable” and “would be a very helpful witness” if she were called. Her lawyers say it produced no new information.

Jan. 25: Senators hear arguments about dismissing the charges against Clinton and then deliberate in secret.

Jan. 26: Senators hear arguments from House managers for seeking depositions from three witnesses — Lewinsky, Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan and White House communications aide Sidney Blumenthal, and then deliberate in secret.

Jan. 27: In back-to-back 56-44 votes, nearly along party lines, the Senate refuses to dismiss the charges against Clinton and agrees to seek depositions from Lewinsky, Jordan and Blumenthal.

Jan. 28: After failing to reach a bipartisan agreement, the Senate approves Republicans’ plan for taking depositions in a party-line vote and sets Feb. 12 as a target date for the trial’s end.

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Feb. 1: House managers depose Lewinsky behind closed doors. Clinton’s lawyer reads a statement expressing the president’s regret over what she’s gone through and asks no questions.

Feb. 2: House managers privately question Jordan for three hours.

Feb. 3: House managers question Blumenthal for three hours.

Feb. 4: By a 70-30 vote, the Senate decides not to call Lewinsky to testify in person, as House Republicans wanted, but allows House managers to present video excerpts of her deposition.

Feb. 6: House managers and White House lawyers play video excerpts of Lewinsky’s deposition on large screens set up in the Senate, an unprecedented departure for a body that 20 years later still does not allow the daily use of electronics by senators, staff or press.

House managers argue that the video clips of Lewinsky show that Clinton orchestrated a cover-up of their relationship. White House lawyers call the clips selective and misleading.

Feb. 8: House managers and Clinton’s lawyers offer closing arguments.

Feb. 9: The Senate begins closed-door deliberations on Clinton’s fate after rejecting a proposal to open the proceedings to the public.

“The American people have the right to have a full understanding of how we reached our decisions on this very momentous matter,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) says before the vote. “It should be debated in the light of day so that the American people and future generations fully understand the reasons for our votes.”

(Collins, still in the Senate, says she is working with several GOP senators to ensure witnesses can be called during the Trump trial.)

Feb. 12:

Clinton is acquitted of both articles of impeachment. On the perjury charge, 10 Republicans and all 45 Democrats vote not guilty. On the obstruction-of-justice charge, the Senate splits 50-50.