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More now on the pending impeachment trial of president trump in the u.s. senate. but before that happens, house speaker nancy pelosi has to send over the articles of impeachment, which she says she wont do until a clear and fair path forward is presented. so how does impeachment work in the senate? cnns victor blackwell explains. >> reporter: house democrats and white house officials are spending the holidays prepping for the presidents senate trial. heres how it will all work. the rules were wr...

Over the past year or so. what do you expect him to play? does he have any actual power or influence, not on the outcome, but at least in the decorum and the process of how this plays out? >> oh, i think the chief justice has a massive role to play. so impeachments of the president have been governed by the same rules that have been around since andrew johnson in 1868. and they say that the chief justice is the one to decide over which witnesses will appear. and so mcconnell has been trying to s...

Rules give the first call to the chief justice. but the senators have the final call. sometimes the judge can lead and his call will hold. most of our footage tonight is from the one televised impeachment trial. but take an example from the 1868 trial of president johnson. the chief justice ruled about senators deliberating behind closed doors. 130 laters we found he cited that for ruling on an open trial until senators closed the door to deliberate. >> and chief justice chase in the andrew john...

February 24th, 1868, andrew johnson. december 16th, 199 8, bill clinton. december 18th, 2019,, donald trump. these are the three impeachments of american presidents. joining me are three historians who have studied presidents who have been impeached or almost impeached. annette gordon reed is the author of many books, one called andrew johnson. tim neftelli is a professor at nyu and a cnn presidential historian. and john meacham is a contributing editor at time. hes written the introduction to "...

February 24th, 1868, andrew johnson. december 19th, 1998, bill clinton. december 18th, 2019, donald trump. these are the three impeachments of american presidents. i wanted to put this into historical context. joining me are historians. gordon-reed is an author. tim maselli is with the richard nixon presidential library. jon meacham is a contributor,

The 63 million, lets have a moment of silence for the 63 million. right? iran herniate in that is that 63 million deserves a degree of deference that the 65 million who voted for hillary clinton dont. right? so saying of course they would do this to obama, but obama was a democrat. thats the difference. >> when they often talk about executive power as well. the president has unlimited power. when the president is a republican. >> of course. >> but on the point about you said any person on earth....

>> when you look at the scale of these things, even we look at what nixon did and when we talk -- there was one kind of asterisk on nixon is that we have talked about johnson, clinton and trump as being impeechl vi impeached and because nixon wasnt technically impeached we have not included him but we should include him because the process still achieved the end that it was supposed to achieve. that congress was going to impeach him and that he likely would have been convicted and so he stepped ...

Dont plan to be an impartial fair juror. rules going back to 1868 say you have to be an impartial juror. >> or at least you have to pretend -- >> he goes on fox and says we will be coordinated and wont change. so the jurors are telling people live on tv were going to coordinate with the defendants. i think every american understands thats mad. >> theres new polling out today that shows 51% support impeachment removal. thats quite high. abcs poll has 70% but thats still a strong majority we shoul...

Power will be impeached. >> its a moment of immense gravity, solemnity and history. this is the third time in the history of the republic this happened, 1868 against andrew johnson. most americans if they know that about him, thats all they know is that he was impeached. the last time was in 1998, almost 21 years to the day as of tomorrow. and now donald john trump, the 45th president of the united states will join that group of presidents who have been impeached. presidents about whom the house...

Pause to talk about third president ever in history of this country to be impeached. give us a little more historical context. >> we are seeing history unfold. the u.s. constitution gives the senate the sole power to try all impeachments and we are about to see only the third time the senate exercised that power to try a president. the first time was in 1868. the u.s. senate tried then president andrew johnson. he was acquitted. meaning found not guilty, by a single vote. then more recently, of ...