The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opened its first impeachment hearing into U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday as Republicans sought to draw out the process with repeated parliamentary motions.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media.

Committee Republicans placed several motions before the committee that when tabled required a roll call vote under committee rules with each member on the panel having to individually voice their support or dissent.

All of the motions have been met with party-line votes, and were rejected by the Democratic majority.

The hearing is centered on testimony from legal experts who are examining whether Trump's repeated requests to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to publicly declare criminal investigations, including into Democratic challenger Joe Biden, rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors," the bar set for impeachment.

Democrats have called three witnesses to testify Wednesday, among them, Pamela Karlan, a professor at Stanford Law School; Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina; and Noah Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law School.

Republicans called George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley.

All of the Democratic witnesses testified that the president carried out impeachable offenses with Karlan saying Trump has "doubled down on violating his oath to 'faithfully execute' the laws and to 'protect and defend the Constitution.'"

"If we are here to keep faith with the Constitution and our Republic, President Trump must be held to account," she said.