Democrats worry a speedy impeachment trial will shut out public

House Democrats gearing up to take impeachment to the Senate are already bashing Republicans over process, accusing GOP leaders in the upper chamber of threatening to shut the public out of the trial by chopping the number of days — and thereby forcing proceedings late into the night.

“That is a complete sham,” a Democratic aide working on impeachment said Sunday evening. “That would be trying to hide the president’s misconduct in the dead of night.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said repeatedly that he intends to model the rules of Trump’s impeachment trial on those that governed the trial of President Clinton in 1999. Then, House prosecutors were allowed 24 hours to make their case, and Clinton’s lawyers were allowed the same window to offer their defense. Afterwards, senators had 16 hours to ask questions about the case.