The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

After weeks of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stalling, the House will finally vote to appoint impeachment managers and send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump over to the Senate on Wednesday. After some preliminary actions later this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he expects the Senate trial to begin in earnest on Tuesday after the long Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend.

There’s still the question of how long the trial will last, which largely depends on who, if anyone, the chamber decides to call as witnesses. Mitt Romney says he wants to put former national security adviser John Bolton on the stand. Meanwhile, Rand Paul says that he’ll force votes “to call Hunter Biden and many more” for the sake of balancing things out. McConnell also said that he “can’t imagine” only Democrats’ witnesses being called if witnesses are called. Ted Cruz said that he’s “open to the possibility of the Senate hearing witnesses,” and offered Hunter Biden and the whistleblower as possible examples.

But, per the kind of “phase one” trial process that McConnell has previously outlined, those questions are going to have to wait until this matter actually gets under way and both sides have made arguments in the case.

As the House of Representatives approaches a contentious vote on the issue on Wednesday, some of the chamber's most politically vulnerable Democrats have come out in favor of impeaching President Donald Trump.

Tuesday saw several pro-impeachment announcements from House freshmen who represent districts that Trump won. Freshman New Jersey Democrat Mikie Sherrill said that she would vote in favor of impeachment; her district narrowly went for Trump in 2016. Also from New Jersey, freshman Tom Malinowski threw in for impeachment with a statement saying that Trump had "endangered our national security, and violated his oath of office"; failed candidate Hillary Clinton narrowly won Malinowski's district in 2016, but he did knock off an incumbent Republican member for the seat in 2018.

A far more vulnerable freshman Democrat, Oklahoma Rep. Kendra Horn, also came out in favor of impeachment on Tuesday. "This is not a decision I came to lightly, but I must do my part to ensure our democracy remains strong," Horn said in a statement. Trump carried Horn's district by a margin of 13.7 percentage points in 2016.

Upstate New York House freshman Anthony Brindisi on Tuesday voiced his support for impeachment, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported. "I know some people will be upset with me," Brindisi said, "but I was elected to do what was right, not what's good for me politically." Trump won Brindisi's district by a margin of 15 percentage points in 2016.

On Monday, Democrats Ben McAdams of Utah and Joe Cunningham of South Carolina announced their support for impeachment. Trump won McAdams' district by 7 points in 2016, while winning Cunningham's by 13 points, Politico noted.

Also on Monday, freshman Democrat Elissa Slotkin of Michigan announced her impeachment support ahead of being met with boos and jeers at an event in her home state; Trump won Slotkin's district by 6.7 points. Virginia's Abigail Spanberger, who knocked off Dave Brat in another 2016 district that went for Trump, also announced Monday that she would vote for impeachment.

Pennsylvania Democrat Matt Cartwright also came out in favor of impeachment Monday. The four-term congressman isn't a freshman, but President Trump did carry his district by nearly 10 percentage points in 2016.

Last week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that she had "no message" for her undecided and politically vulnerable colleagues and said that "people have to come to their own conclusions" on the impeachment issue.

And not all House Democrats in Trump-won districts have broken in favor of impeachment.

Over the weekend, it was reported that New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew planned to switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party over the impeachment issue. Trump won Van Drew's district by 4.6 points in 2016. Collin Peterson — who represents a rural Minnesota district Trump won by 30 points — has said he's a likely no vote on the matter. Van Drew and Peterson were the only two House Democrats to vote against the chamber's impeachment inquiry earlier this year.

The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

When impeachment comes to the Senate, will members of the Republican-controlled upper chamber spend their time on a longer process and delve into the issues underlying the Ukraine controversy and the origins of the impeachment probe, or move quickly to dismiss the matter and get back to other business? Mitch McConnell says he favors the latter.

During an appearance on Fox News Thursday night, the Senate majority leader said that, while he plans to be in “total coordination” with the White House’s legal team on the trial, his “hope is that it will be a shorter process rather than a long, lengthy process.”

McConnell’s not alone in that hope; other Senate Republicans have voiced their preference for a shorter trial as the chamber prepares to take up an expected trial in the new year. "My goal is to end this as soon as possible for the good of the country because I think it's a danger to the presidency to legitimize this," Lindsey Graham said Thursday.

In contrast, Republican House Member Jim Banks has publicly called on the Senate to take the strategy of calling witnesses in a lengthier trial in a letter to Graham, in which he implored, “Take your time, learn the facts and show the American people how this all began."