Broadcast on a wednesday night. Thank you so very much for being here with us. Good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Were in the midst of live, ongoing coverage of the house judiciariry committee markup. The two articles ever impeachment against the president of the United States that of course congressman jim jordan of ohio speaking right now. This is a standard part of legislative process, the markup. It happens all time. But tonight obviously its quite difference in the import because it is the most serious constitutional activity the Judiciary Committee can pursue. Tonight the committee will be hearing different amendments and debating the two articles before
them. We expect them to be voted on by the full committee tomorrow. Weve already heard Opening Statements from House Judiciary Chair jerry nadler and Ranking Member doug collins. Heres how the chair presented tonights meeting. Taken together, the two Articles Ch
broadcast on a wednesday night. thank you so very much for being here with us. good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. good evening from new york. i m chris hayes. we re in the midst of live, ongoing coverage of the house judiciariry committee markup. the two articles ever impeachment against the president of the united states that of course congressman jim jordan of ohio speaking right now. this is a standard part of legislative process, the markup. it happens all time. but tonight obviously it s quite difference in the import because it is the most serious constitutional activity the judiciary committee can pursue. tonight the committee will be hearing different amendments and debating the two articles before
democratic republic. the house judiciary committee, as we mentioned, just finished what was for them a late night of formal debate on the articles of impeachment against president trump. the committee is expected to vote on those two articles sometime tomorrow, thoroughly expected to be up or down party line. our own correspondent garrett haake has been working late tonight and joins us from the capitol. so, garrett, sum up just what it was we witnessed tonight. were these set speeches? did they react to each other at all? reporter: only barely, brian. you called it formal debate. i think that s actually a pretty good word for it. you had democrats trying to elevate the conversation here a little bit, make this about the constitution, a historical moment, something they didn t want to do but felt they had to. there were a lot of buy graph
graphical speeches, and the republican strategy was interesting too. aside from a couple of members what you heard by and large was not a debate about the specific facts of the ukraine case but rather them trying to make a case that this was ineast vitab the minute democrats regained control of the house in the 2018 mef midterms. but this was not a lot of the procedural high jinks. this was not as nasty as we will probably see tomorrow when they resume the markup and get into this process of exchanging amendments on a set of documents that, let s be clear, will not be amended. they will come out of this committee the same way they went in. but we re going to see a lot of, i think, much more bitter fighting about the wording of these documents, republican efforts to change them before the die is cast and the votes are taken tomorrow afternoon sometime. that s one point i wanted to make for any of the kids
and we only have one option, and that s to hold this president accountable. the vote by the committee most likely party line, of course, expected tomorrow. that would hand the matter on to the full house. that would make a senate trial in january almost certain. one of the issues driving this committee vote before the weekend, by the way, a large congressional delegation headed to europe on thursday afternoon to mark the 75th anniversary of the battle of the bulge. tonight politico and the washington post reporting that house democrats may see some defections on an impeachment vote. there are alreadych two that we know of, and this is new. the washington post also reporting the white house budget office is now offering a new explanation for withholding that military aid to ukraine. yes, the budget office, quote, asserts in a new legal memo that it withheld military aid to ukraine as a temporary move to study whetherra the spending