Republicans Resist As Dems Plead For Help To Convict ‘Corrupt’ Trump
Jan. 23--House Democrats kicked off opening arguments in President Trump's impeachment trial Wednesday by invoking the Framers and urging the Senate to remove the president from office over his "cold-blooded" Ukraine scheme -- as Republicans all but ignored their impassioned pleas.
In the first of three sessions earmarked for Democratic arguments, the seven House impeachment managers took turns laying out the case that Trump abused his power and obstructed Congress.
They quoted Alexander Hamilton and other Founding Fathers in lengthy speeches from the Senate floor, played video clips of witness testimony from the House impeachment inquiry and called on Republicans to live up to their constitutional oath.
"We are here today in this hallowed chamber undertaking this solemn action for only the third time in history because Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States, has acted precisely as Hamilton and his contemporaries feared," said House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who leads the team of impeachment managers.
But many of the chamber's 53 Republicans didn't even bother to stick around for large portions of the proceedings, even though impeachment trial guidelines hold that senators must be in attendance "at all times."
At one point in the nearly nine-hour session, 21 Republicans weren't even in their seats, with several of them dipping out into the hallway.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump's most ardent congressional boosters, was absent for 30 minutes straight at one point.
Democratic senators listening to Schiff and his team were disheartened by the Republicans' seeming indifference.
"I don't have any insight into what they're thinking, but there are moments in a trial when people vote with their feet," Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said. "Jurors don't get to do that in a real jury. We are acting as if a jury, and it is somewhat disconcerting to have folks absent for long periods of time."
But Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who left the chamber for at least two separate 20-minute stretches, countered he didn't need to be there for presentations he has already absorbed.
"If they say something I've not previously heard I write it down. Just new facts, it helps me focus," said Cassidy, who's usually known in the Senate as a diligent note taker.
The apparent GOP disinterest in the historic trial underscores the obstacle Democrats face in making the case that Trump must be booted from the White House over his attempts to strong-arm Ukraine's government into doing his political dirty work before the 2020 election.
The most imminent uphill battle for Democrats is convincing at least four Republicans to vote with them to authorize subpoenas of records and witnesses withheld from House impeachment investigators by Trump, including former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
Such a vote is expected at some point next week. First, the House managers are expected to continue their opening arguments Thursday and Friday before Trump's legal team is given a chance to rebut.
"There's a lot of things I'd like to rebut," top Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow said during a break in Wednesday's proceeding, "and we will rebut."
Trump, meanwhile, struck a jovial tone.
"We have a great case," the president told reporters in Switzerland, where he's been since Tuesday attending an economic forum.
Breaking a bit with Senate Republicans, who had just one day earlier jammed through a trial blueprint that gave no commitments for new evidence, Trump said he'd have no qualms about Bolton and other key witnesses testifying, though he claimed "national security" concerns may preclude them from doing so.
Trump sweepingly blocked Bolton and other top administration officials from testifying in the House proceedings, triggering the obstruction of Congress charge in the impeachment articles.
A small group of Senate Democrats have privately discussed a horse-trading deal in which Republicans would be allowed to call Joe or Hunter Biden as witnesses if they get to subpoena Bolton.
Democratic brass shot down that idea.
"That's off the table," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.
Trump was impeached in part for pressing President Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation of baseless corruption allegations about the Bidens while dangling a White House meeting and $391 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine as quid pro quo leverage.
Allowing Republicans to call either of the Bidens, most Democrats say, would thereby lend undue credence to Trump's unsubstantiated claims.
"They want to use this trial to smear the Bidens," Schiff said. "That's not the purpose of the trial and the senators should not allow it to be abused in that way."
Speaking to voters in Iowa, the elder Biden also rejected the idea. "I want no part of that," said the former vice president, who's a front-runner for the Democratic nomination to take on Trump in November's election.
No new ground was covered in the Democratic impeachment managers' first round of opening arguments.
Rather, they delved at length into the nitty gritty details of their findings.
Ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani -- who played a prominent role in carrying out Trump's hunt for Ukrainian dirt on Democrats -- was mentioned repeatedly, as the Democrats sought to dispel the president's defense that his shady Kiev campaign just amounted to an unconventional approach to foreign policy.
"Giuliani is not the secretary of state. He's not an ambassador. He's not a member of the diplomatic corps. Rudolph Giuliani is a cold-blooded political operative for President Trump's re-election campaign," said New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, one of the managers.
At the same time, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, Jeffries' fellow New Yorker and impeachment manager, stressed that Trump's Ukrainian pressure campaign involved nearly his entire administration.
"This is a story of a corrupt, government-wide effort that included ambassadors, cabinet officials, executive branch agencies and the office of the president," Nadler said. "This effort threatened the security of Ukraine and compromised our own national security interests because the president cared only about his personal, political interests."
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