House Dems present case to impeach

Clips, text messages displayed during Wednesday’s session.

By Daniel Moore / Block News Alliance
Wed, 22 Jan 2020 21:09:24 GMT

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WASHINGTON — In the late afternoon on Wednesday, the voice of the man at the center of the third impeachment trial in U.S. history boomed through the U.S. Senate, discussing how he would react if a foreign government offered information on a political rival.

“If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said], ‘We have information on your opponent’ — oh, I think I’d want to hear it,” President Trump said during an Oval Office interview with ABC News in June, 2019, which was broadcast in the chamber as all 100 senators looked on.

The video was among a trove of clips, text messages, and other visual aids deployed by House Democrats during eight hours of opening arguments in Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial.

Wednesday’s session in the Senate ended about 9:30 p.m. That was much earlier than the Tuesday session, which lasted until about 2 a.m. Wednesday.

The team of six House impeachment managers, led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, sought to convince senators that Mr. Trump abused his power by freezing nearly $400 million in security aid to Ukraine and a coveted White House meeting in exchange for that country announcing an investigation into a political rival.

Mr. Schiff, addressing senators at the start of the session, said the House impeachment inquiry last fall clearly proved Mr. Trump pressured Ukraine in an attempt to “cheat” in this year’s presidential election. The House impeached Mr. Trump in December on two articles: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Mr. Schiff told senators a response to Mr. Trump’s actions “cannot be decided at the ballot box” because the President had weakened the integrity of U.S. elections.

The President’s lawyers sat by, waiting their turn, as Mr. Trump blasted the proceedings from afar.

Mr. Trump, who was in Switzerland attending a global economic forum, threatened jokingly to face off with the Democrats by coming to “sit right in the front row and stare at their corrupt faces.”

“I watched the lies from Adam Schiff. He’ll stand, he’ll look at a microphone, and he’ll talk like he’s so aggrieved,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference from the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Wednesday’s arguments zeroed in on private discussions among current and former Trump Administration officials — including text messages showing his own diplomats’ hand-wringing over how to carry out the President’s directives.

Democrats portrayed Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, as the key figure who diplomats understood to be leading the pressure campaign for the President.

Mr. Giuliani spread a “debunked” belief, Mr. Schiff said, that former Vice President Joe Biden forced an anti-corruption official in Ukraine to resign because his son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board of an energy company that had come under scrutiny. Mr. Biden is running for president this year.

Mr. Giuliani also believed a widely discredited theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election to benefit Mr. Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton.

That Mr. Giuliani wielded tremendous power in U.S. foreign policy based on these theories clearly bothered administration officials, Democrats said. The impeachment managers drew from an extensive video library of public testimony from House Intelligence Committee hearings in November, pulling out particularly poignant moments.

Kurt Volker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told the committee about Mr. Trump’s views on Ukraine.

“He said, ‘Ukraine is a corrupt country full of terrible people.’ He said, ‘they tried to take me down,’’ Mr. Volker testified. “President Trump had a deeply rooted negative view on Ukraine,” shaped by Mr. Guiliani.

Then there was former White House adviser Fiona Hill, who spoke with John Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, about how Mr. Guiliani directed the “smear campaign” on Marie Yovanovitch, who was fired as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine last year.

“Ambassador Bolton basically indicated with body language there’s nothing we could do” to push back against Mr. Guiliani, Ms. Hill told the committee.

Democrats pulled the ABC News interview of Mr. Trump saying he would welcome dirt on his political opponents from foreign governments — instead of immediately reporting it to the F.B.I.

“I think you might want to listen; there isn’t anything wrong with listening,” Mr. Trump said in the interview. “I think I’d want to hear it.”

One by one, the impeachment managers — including Rep. Jerry Nadler, (D., N.Y.); Rep. Sylvia Garcia, (D., Texas), Rep. Jason Crow, (D., Colo.), Rep. Val Demings, (D., Fla.), and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, (D., Calif.) — took the front of the room to speak.

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R., S.C.) frequently reacted to the presentations, shaking his head, making exasperated faces and elbowing his neighbor, Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.). Some senators on the Democratic side also got up to stretch their legs.

Closing out the session — and during prime-time viewing hours — Mr. Schiff displayed dozens of texts between Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union, and Mr. Volker, the former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, in August and September.

Democrats have another 16 hours or so, spread over the next two days, to make their case. On Thursday, Mr. Schiff said, Democrats “will go through the law and the Constitution and the facts as they apply” to Mr. Trump’s abuse of power.

After that, White House lawyers will have an equal amount of time, also spread over three days, for arguments.

Senators will then have 16 hours to ask questions of both sides.

The Block News Alliance consists of The Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Daniel Moore is a reporter for the Post-Gazette. Contact him at: dmoore@post-gazette.com, Twitter @PGdanielmoore

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