(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump’s impeachment moves to the GOP-controlled Senate where the president and Democrats will battle over a small group of Republicans whose votes will determine the course of a trial on whether he should be removed from office. The Senate proceedings will begin formally on Thursday with a show of pageantry that includes the reading of two impeachment articles and U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts swearing in 100 senators as jurors. Yet one of the most pressing and contentious issues — whether to meet Democratic demands for witnesses — will remain unresolved for more than a week. The seven House Democrats chosen by Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday to argue the impeachment case will have their best shot when the trial fully gets under way early next week to persuade at least four Republicans that new witnesses must be heard and new evidence presented. Despite Trump’s conflicting statements about wanting witnesses to defend him during the Senate trial, White House officials said Wednesday the president’s team is seeking a short trial and that no additional testimony is needed. The trial is almost certain to end with Trump’s acquittal on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress; 67 votes are required to convict and no Republican senator has said the articles laid out by House merit his removal from office. But the entire proceeding will hang over his bid for re-election as well as his legacy. Before the trial fully gets under way on Tuesday, the Senate must summon the president to respond to the charges and make other procedural moves, including adopting a resolution setting the rules. McConnell has said they would parallel those set out for the 1999 impeachment trial of then-President Bill Clinton. Assuming that resolution is adopted by 51 senators without changes, the impeachment managers will have several days to be present their case, followed by the defense, questions from senators and then either votes to extend the trial or wrap it up and declare Trump guilty or not guilty. Once the House managers and Trump’s counsel begin presenting their cases, senators will find themselves in an unusual setting. They’ve been told they must stay seated at their desks for the proceedings with only reading material related to the case and have been admonished to avoid even talking to neighboring senators. Their telephones and other electronic devices will be kept in special cubbies in the cloakrooms, and access to the Senate side of the Capitol will be unusually limited for both reporters and staff. The trial may go on for six days a week. The managers can file certain preliminary motions under the rules of impeachment, and also file a trial brief stating its overall case. Nadler said one focus of House legal arguments from the start will be to argue for the allowing of evidence not considered or available in the House’s impeachment investigation. The attempt to sway Collins, Romney and the other GOP senators had begun well before the first arguments are made on the Senate floor. “Above all, a fair trial must include additional documents and relevant witnesses,” Nadler said. Among the additional evidence, Nadler cited the materials turned over by Lev Parnas, a former associate of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was central to the attempt to pressure Ukraine A lawyer for Parnas, who is under indictment on campaign finance-related charges, turned over to House investigators a trove of notes, emails and text messages that Democrats said “further corroborates the findings and evidence related to the president’s scheme, which was laid out in the Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report.” The material includes a May 2019 letter from Giuliani to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy requesting a meeting “in my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent.” Schiff said the materials from Parnas showed that Giuliani’s back-channel effort to influence Ukraine was directed by Trump. “There is no fobbing this off on others,” he said. “The president was the architect of this scheme.” He said the documents are only a “small sample” of the kinds of material that were withheld by the White House during the House investigation. “Those documents should be demanded by the senators,” Schiff said. Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas said an impeachment trial is a “unique process” that is unlike a regular court proceeding. “They call us a jury but we’re hardly disinterested,” Cornyn said. “So the analogies we are all trying to make” to judicial trials “have their limitations.” Nick Note: Well the circus is about to begin. I immensely dislike Donald Trump…. BUT this impeachment  saddens me. I know he wlil never be convicted. And their is a good chance he will be reelected by the stupid majority. The great threat to democracy is when the masses figure out they can vote for themselves largesse from the treasury. Want to destroy a man. Pay him not to work. He will become stupid, lazy and he will end up looking for something to fuck, something to fuck up and something to get fucked up on. In other words you created a Fuck Up.