The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump got underway on Tuesday with arguments about whether the US Senate has jurisdiction to try the former president now that he has left office. Most legal scholars, regardless of political ideology, believe it does. But impeachment is a political rather than a legal process, so a debate and vote on the issue took up the first day of the trial.

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump were defending him not only on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday in his second impeachment trial, but also in Palm Beach, Florida, at a town council meeting.

The trial resumes at noon Wednesday, when senators will hear evidence from Democratic prosecutors.

A high federal official who has recently left office. A Senate vote that he can still be tried on impeachment. A widespread belief that he was guilty.

The Senate has seen this movie before.

Nearly 150 years before Tuesday's 56-44 vote to proceed with a trial against now-private citizen Donald ...

The first day of President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial was nominally about the constitutionality of holding an impeachment trial for a former president.