In tune with the current media hubbub around the beginning of the public hearings in the House's impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump last week, dubbed by various late night television hosts as a new daytime reality show, we want to show you the sources where you can actually look it all up word by word. As a public institution committed to transparency, The United States Congress offers a wide array of resources documenting its daily proceedings in the public domain.
The central organ which documents all debates and proceedings of the House of Representatives and the Senate is The Congressional Record, which began its publication in 1873. Those early volumes until 2015 are now available in digitized form. The most convenient way to access the current proceedings of both chambers online (1989 until today) is offered on the website of the United States Congress and also via an app for Apple devices.
The lawmaking proceedings reaching back to the first congress are contained in the Annals of Congress (1789 – 1824) available through the Library of Congress on the website “A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation,” where you can also find comprehensive documentation of the origins of the republic and the Continental Congress of 1774.
For those of you who are interested in the history of impeachment, you might want to delve into The Journal of the House of Representatives of March 2nd 1868 and the Journal of the Senate to look back upon how the first presidential impeachment trial against president Andrew Johnson unfolded. A comprehensive summary of the events can be found on the official United States Senate website.
For the latest updates and commentary on the current impeachment hearings, you might want to rely on your trustworthy news sources, but you can also follow the documentation on the website of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that conducts the impeachment hearings.
