Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
With a near party-line vote on impeachment rules expected in the House Thursday morning, Democrats are confident, while Republicans are focusing on swing states to shore up support.
Why it matters: Democrats say the vote will accelerate the inquiry, and will give them more tools to conduct their investigation.
- The mid-morning vote is scheduled in the middle of testimony by Tim Morrison, a National Security Council official who has decided to leave the administration "to pursue other opportunities."
Democrats are going for a jackpot by asking former Trump national security adviser John Bolton to appear behind closed doors next week.
- A source close to Bolton tells Axios' Margaret Talev that Bolton won’t testify unless compelled — via subpoena.
- But if Bolton is compelled, look out: He knows a lot, and won’t be demure or hold back.
The Trump re-election campaign is looking at impeachment largely through the lens of the swing states the president needs to win in 2020.
- Aides cite polls showing that his support has held in battlegrounds.
- "Once you get outside Washington, D.C.," a Trump campaign official said, "the issue of impeaching a duly elected president plays a lot differently."
The campaign says it plans a massive, data-driven ground game, to hold Democrats in tough districts "accountable for their positions on impeachment."
- A N.Y. Times Upshot/Siena College poll released yesterday found a majority of voters in each of six battleground states (Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) oppose impeaching and removing Trump.
- The campaign says those findings reflect its internal polling.
Go deeper: Trump's speedy impeachment process