Mark Meadows

As the House Judiciary Committee debated the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday again declined to explain to reporters why certain charges were left out of the articles.

On Tuesday she was dismissive when asked why Democrats did not include obstruction of justice as outlined in the special counsel report on its investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Trump’s campaign. During her weekly news conference on Thursday, it was the exclusion of bribery she didn’t want to explain.

House Democrats spoke for months about how investigations had established crimes that President Donald Trump committed, but on Tuesday they did not specifically include those allegations in articles of impeachment under the constitutional standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The two articles of impeachment Democrats filed — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — stayed away from detailing where Trump might have broken the law with his dealings with Ukraine or interactions with the special counsel probe into Russian interference with the 2016 election.

House Democrats will bring two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, one saying he abused the power of his office and another that he obstructed Congress in its investigation of his conduct.

The Judiciary Committee plans to begin consideration of the articles, which are official charges against the president, on Thursday, and the full House is expected to vote next week. Opening statements at the Judiciary Committee will begin Wednesday night.

Ten years is long enough to forget the chaos of covering campaigns during redistricting. But North Carolina, bless its heart, was kind enough to offer us an early taste of the upcoming craziness of a redistricting cycle.

First, new congressional lines can put new pressure on members.

Democrats and Republicans might have been in the same hearing room Wednesday, but the first day of testimony in this phase of the impeachment process of President Donald Trump underscored just how little the parties are engaging with each other.

And the daylong House Judiciary Committee hearing dedicated to exploring the Constitution’s impeachment standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors” offered little hope of some mutual agreement on the facts that House Democrats uncovered, how to interpret them or the entire impeachment process.

A marathon of impeachment hearings dominated the week, but we also saw former Speaker John Boehner return to the Capitol for the unveiling of his portrait before Congress left town for the Thanksgiving recess.

The House left town for its Thanksgiving recess on Thursday with little clarity on where the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump goes from here.

After two weeks of public hearings with 12 witnesses, Democratic Intelligence Committee members have not said whether they will call more to testify after the Thanksgiving break.

As the House impeachment inquiry has moved from closed depositions to open hearings, lawmakers largely knew what witnesses would say. But Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union who will testify Wednesday, is a cliffhanger.

The House Intelligence Committee will hear from Sondland after three days of testimony with seven other witnesses, many of whom spoke to conversations they’ve had with him. Those accounts place Sondland in the center of the controversy about whether Trump withheld security assistance to Ukraine and a White House meeting with the country’s new president to secure investigations into his political rivals.

Two polls released Tuesday show the House’s impeachment hearings are having minimal impact on public sentiment, with one conducted over the weekend revealing opposition to impeachment growing among independents.

A Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted Nov. 15 to 17 after the first week of public hearings found 47 percent of respondents support the House impeaching President Donald Trump, compared to 44 percent who oppose such action.

Continuing their yearslong feud, President Donald Trump on Tuesday called Speaker Nancy Pelosi “incompetent” over House Democrats’ impeachment probe.

The president also lashed out at the media, saying their coverage of his unscheduled visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Saturday shows news outlets are “sick.” There also were indications from the president’s staff that he will not trigger another government shutdown later this week.