Once it became clear that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would end her delay of the impeachment proceedings, and send the articles to the Senate for a trial, there was one big question on the minds of observers: who’ll try the case?
This morning, Pelosi introduced the prosecutorial team.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday announced the seven House Democrats who will act as the “managers” in the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
The managers are: Reps. Adam Schiff of California, who will be the lead manager; Jerry Nadler of New York; Hakeem Jeffries of New York; Jason Crow of Colorado; Zoe Lofgren of California; Val Demings of Florida; and Sylvia Garcia of Texas.
The fact that there are seven impeachment managers is itself notable: during the Senate impeachment trial for Bill Clinton, there were 13 Republican managers, each of whom served on the House Judiciary Committee. More than two decades later, Pelosi has chosen a smaller, more diverse group, some of whom are not on the Judiciary panel.
In fact, their relevant experiences are of interest (in alphabetical order):
* Crow is an Armed Services Committee member, an experienced lawyer, and a decorated Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. (He’s one of two freshmen on the seven-member team, having only been in Congress for 12 months.)
* Demings serves on both the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, and is a former chief of police in Orlando.
* Garcia is a House Judiciary Committee member and a former judge in Houston. (Like Crow, Garcia has only been in Congress for one year.)
* Jeffries is a Judiciary Committee member, an experienced lawyer, and a former clerk for a judge.
* Lofgren has the unique experience of having been a Judiciary Committee staffer when the panel was preparing to impeach Richard Nixon, a Judiciary Committee member during Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and will serve as an impeachment manager against Trump.
* Nadler is a lawyer and a longtime member of the House Judiciary Committee, which he currently chairs.
* Schiff is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, but he’s also a former federal prosecutor. Just as notable, he’s served as a Senate impeachment manager before — along with Lofgren — in the 2010 case against Judge Thomas Porteous.
Incidentally, before today, every presidential impeachment manager in American history was a white man. Of the seven members of the current team, most are not white men.
If recent history is any guide, Trump will publish a series of intemperate tweets targeting each of them fairly soon.
There was some recent speculation about whether Michigan Rep. Justin Amash — Congress’ only independent, and a former Republican who voted for both of the articles of impeachment against Trump — might be among the managers trying the case. Evidently, he didn’t make the cut.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."