Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) talks to reporters during a break in the impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 22, 2020.
Joshua Roberts | Reuters
House Democrats are set Thursday to continue to present their opening statements while pressing for documents and witnesses to be included in President Donald Trump‘s impeachment trial in the Senate.
The seven House managers, led by Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., have 24 cumulative hours to lay out their case that Trump, who was impeached Dec. 18 in the House on articles of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, should be convicted and removed from office.
They have up to three days to make their arguments, after which Trump’s lawyers will have the same amount of time to lay out their defense of the president.
The House impeached Trump over his efforts to pressure Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to launch investigations into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter, along with a debunked conspiracy theory alleging Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
While Trump sought those investigations, his administration was withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine without providing a clear explanation. Democrats also impeached Trump for blocking the House’s investigation into the matter, by refusing to hand over any documents and directing key witnesses not to comply with Congress.
Schiff and his team kicked off their statements Wednesday by painting a detailed timeline of events encompassing Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, and moving to establish that the president’s actions constitute abuses of his office.
Trump, Schiff said, “does not, under our laws and under our constitution, have a right to use the powers of his office to corruptly solicit foreign aid, prohibited foreign aid, in his reelection.”
“He does not have the right to withhold official presidential acts to secure that assistance, and he certainly does not have the right to undermine our elections and place our security at risk for his own personal benefit,” Schiff said. “No president, Republican or Democrat, can be permitted to do that.”
The trial proceedings Wednesday went until nearly 10 p.m. ET. They are scheduled to restart Thursday at 1 p.m.
Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow on Wednesday previewed how his team would respond to the Democrats. The defense lawyers would challenge the House managers’ arguments while making “an affirmative case” in Trump’s defense, Sekulow said.
As the Democrats put forward their case, they also argued for the Senate to permit new documents and witness testimony in the trial. Their prior efforts to ensure certain documents and witnesses could be used as evidence were shot down Tuesday.
“We can and will prove President Trump guilty of the conduct and investigation into his misconduct,” Schiff said toward the end of his final remarks Wednesday. “But you should know who else was involved in the scheme. You should want the whole truth to come out.”
Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., another House impeachment manager, said on MSNBC on Thursday morning that “with documents, that’s gonna be the ultimate judge of how serious [Republicans are] taking this, whether or not they’re just gonna be a rubber stamp for the president.”
Democrats have also seized on Trump’s recent comments about the case, boasting in Davos, Switzerland, that “honestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material.”
Trump, who left Davos Wednesday after attending the World Economic Forum, slammed the impeachment “hoax” and called out some of the leading Democrats, including “sleazeball” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., before returning to the U.S.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., poured cold water on the possibility of a witness trade, whereby former national security advisor John Bolton could be allowed to testify if Hunter Biden was also brought in as a witness.
Democrats see Bolton as a key fact witness who was close to the president and the associates who were involved in the efforts toward Ukraine. Many Republicans have adopted Trump’s suspicions about Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a Ukraine natural gas company while his father was vice president.
“No, I think that’s off the table,” Schumer said when asked about the possibility of a witness trade. “That trade is not on the table.”
