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In Impeachment Case, Schiff Accuses Trump of Trying ‘to Cheat’ in Election In Impeachment Case, Schiff Accuses Trump of Trying ‘to Cheat’ in Election
(32 minutes later)
WASHINGTON — The House Democratic impeachment managers presented their case on Wednesday for convicting President Trump and removing him from office on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, opening oral arguments in an already rancorous Senate trial. WASHINGTON — The House Democratic impeachment managers began formal arguments in the Senate trial on Wednesday, presenting a meticulous and scathing case for convicting President Trump and removing him from office on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Taking the lectern in the well of the Senate as senators sat silently preparing to weigh Mr. Trump’s fate, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the lead House prosecutor, accused the president of a “corrupt scheme” to pressure Ukraine for help “to cheat” in the election. Taking the lectern in the chamber as senators sat silently preparing to weigh Mr. Trump’s fate, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the lead House prosecutor, accused the president of a corrupt scheme to pressure Ukraine for help “to cheat” in the 2020 presidential election.
Invoking the nation’s founders and their fears that a self-interested leader might subvert democracy for his own personal gain, Mr. Schiff argued that the president’s conduct was precisely what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they devised the remedy of impeachment, one he said was “as powerful as the evil it was meant to combat.”Invoking the nation’s founders and their fears that a self-interested leader might subvert democracy for his own personal gain, Mr. Schiff argued that the president’s conduct was precisely what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they devised the remedy of impeachment, one he said was “as powerful as the evil it was meant to combat.”
“If not remedied by his conviction in the Senate, and removal from office, President Trump’s abuse of his office and obstruction of Congress will permanently alter the balance of power among the branches of government,” Mr. Schiff said in his opening remarks. “The president has shown that he believes that he’s above the law and scornful of constraint.”“If not remedied by his conviction in the Senate, and removal from office, President Trump’s abuse of his office and obstruction of Congress will permanently alter the balance of power among the branches of government,” Mr. Schiff said in his opening remarks. “The president has shown that he believes that he’s above the law and scornful of constraint.”
As Mr. Schiff began what is expected to be an uninterrupted, three-day presentation of evidence by the House prosecutors, Mr. Trump — impatient for his legal team to have a chance to mount a vigorous defense of his behavior — seethed from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The Senate proceeding, the third impeachment trial of a president in the nation’s history, was fraught with partisan rancor and political consequence both for Mr. Trump and for the two parties grappling over his future.
At a news conference in Davos, Switzerland, where he was attending the World Economic Forum, Mr. Trump hurled insults at the House Democrats bringing the case against him, branding Mr. Schiff a “corrupt politician” and telling reporters he would like to personally attend the Senate trial in order to “sit right in the front row and stare into their corrupt faces.” But he acknowledged that his lawyers would probably advise against it. In a series of speeches, Mr. Schiff and the six other impeachment managers asserted that the president pressured Ukraine to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, Hunter Biden, while withholding as leverage nearly $400 million in security aid for Kyiv and a White House meeting for its president. When he was caught, they said, Mr. Trump ordered a cover-up, blocking witnesses and denying Congress the evidence that could corroborate his scheme.
The oral arguments began just hours after the conclusion of a lengthy fight over witnesses and documents that stretched into the wee hours of Wednesday morning and cleaved the Senate along party lines. It was dominated by bitter exchanges between the Democratic House managers and the president’s legal defense team that grew so hostile after midnight that they drew a reprimand from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who is presiding over the trial. “President Trump withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to a strategic partner at war with Russia to secure foreign help with his re-election,” Mr. Schiff declared. “In other words, to cheat.”
Wednesday’s proceedings unfolded in more measured tones as Mr. Schiff methodically summarized the central charges that the House approved on a nearly party-line vote in December. Yet the Senate proceeding, only the third impeachment trial of a president in the nation’s history, was fraught with partisan rancor and political consequence both for Mr. Trump and for the two parties grappling over his future. As the Democrats laid out their now-familiar case, there was little doubt about the outcome of the trial, which is all but certain to end in Mr. Trump’s acquittal in the Senate, where it would take 67 votes to convict and remove him. But the contours of the trial remained up in the air, as Republicans and Democrats continued to feud over whether to consider additional evidence, including witnesses Mr. Trump has forbade from cooperating with the inquiry.
Mr. Schiff reprised the House case against Mr. Trump, asserting that the president sought help from Ukraine in the 2020 election, by pressuring the country to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. while withholding as leverage security aid for Kyiv and a White House meeting for its president. When he was caught, Mr. Schiff added, the president ordered a cover-up, blocking witnesses and denying Congress the evidence that could corroborate his scheme. Mr. Trump — impatient for his legal team to have a chance to mount a vigorous defense of his behavior — seethed from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, hurling insults at the impeachment managers and telling reporters he would like to personally attend the Senate trial in order to “sit right in the front row and stare into their corrupt faces.”
“Guarding against a president who undertakes official acts with the corrupt motive of helping himself is at the heart of the impeachment power,” Mr. Schiff said. At a news conference in Davos, Switzerland, where he was attending the World Economic Forum, Mr. Trump said that John R. Bolton, the former White House national security adviser, could not be allowed to testify because he “knows my thoughts on certain people and other governments, war and peace and different things — that’s a national security problem.”
Mr. Trump had embraced the idea of pushing for a quick dismissal of the case against him, and some of his conservative allies said the Senate should vote quickly to bring the trial to an end. Mr. Trump’s lawyers, however, chose not to take an opportunity on Wednesday to seek a dismissal. Republican leaders discouraged the defense team from seeking a vote this week that would almost certainly have failed, dividing Republicans and dealing Mr. Trump an early symbolic defeat. A motion to dismiss the case could still be offered later in the trial. Mr. Schiff insisted in his opening arguments that fairness demanded hearing from Mr. Bolton, who has pledged to testify if the Senate subpoenas him, and other White House officials. Democrats angrily rejected the suggestion that they might agree to call Hunter Biden in exchange for Mr. Bolton’s appearance.
Mr. Schiff’s presentation in the Senate chamber played out against the backdrop of deepening partisan squabbling that spilled over from Tuesday’s 12-hour debate over the rules governing the trial. Several senators said they were particularly piqued by the managers’ repeated insistence — put most bluntly by Mr. Nadler — that the Senate was abetting a cover-up of Mr. Trump’s misconduct and preparing to hold a sham trial by rejecting Democrats’ demands for witnesses and documents. “This isn’t like some fantasy football trade,” Mr. Schiff said before the trial commenced Wednesday. “Trials aren’t trades for witnesses.”
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, told reporters the idea was “off the table.”
The only certainty appeared to be that a set of closed-door negotiations among senators will soon intensify as Democrats plot their strategy for winning a vote on witnesses, which would require the votes of a handful of centrist Republican senators who have signaled they are open to the idea. A series of votes on the matter is likely next week, after the House managers and White House lawyers complete their arguments, and senators have the chance to submit questions.
On the first day of oral arguments scheduled to last into next week, Mr. Schiff opened with a plea for patience, telling senators that “we have some very long days yet to come.” But senators already seemed restless; many passed notes to each other, and as the hours wore on, a handful of seats were frequently empty as senators from both parties slipped out of the chamber for brief respites from the weighty — and often very tedious — arguments.
A protester in the Senate gallery briefly interrupted arguments from Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, shouting epithets about a Democratic senator and yelling that Democrats support abortion before being dragged out by Capitol Hill police officers.
On the floor, the managers sought to place Mr. Trump’s Ukraine pressure campaign in the context of what they called a broader impulse by the president to cede America’s foreign policy to Russia. It was no coincidence, Mr. Schiff argued, that Mr. Trump had asked the president of Ukraine for investigations into his rivals just one day after Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel who investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, issued his report.
“President Trump, believing he had escaped accountability for Russia meddling in the first election, and welcoming of it, asked the Ukrainian president to help him undermine the special counsel’s conclusion and help him smear a political opponent,” Mr. Schiff said.
For now, the president’s legal team must sit silently in the chamber as the president’s House accusers have exclusive access to the microphone. Under the rules of the trial adopted on Tuesday, the House managers have 24 hours over three days to present their case, leaving White House lawyers to take in their searingly argued case about Mr. Trump’s actions, with no opportunity for immediate rebuttal.
The president vented his spleen about the process on Twitter, firing off so many posts that he set a record for any single day in his presidency.
As of 7:30 p.m., as the Senate’s trial session stretched into its seventh hour, Mr. Trump had posted or reposted 142 messages on Twitter, surpassing the previous record of 123 set in December, as he defended himself and lashed out at the House managers. Most of the messages were retweets of messages from allies and supporters assailing Mr. Schiff and others prosecuting the case.
During a dinner break on Wednesday, Mr. Sekulow raced to face reporters, vowing to eventually respond “to what the House managers have put forward, and we are going to make an affirmative case defending the president.”
The tables will turn later this week, likely on Saturday, when the defense team will be given the same 24 hours of uninterrupted time to play to the cameras from the Senate floor, with House Democrats sidelined. The defense of the president could continue into early next week after a break on Sunday.
The oral arguments on Wednesday began just hours after the conclusion of a lengthy fight over witnesses and documents that stretched into the wee hours of the day and cleaved the Senate along party lines. It was dominated by bitter exchanges between the Democratic House managers and the president’s legal defense team that grew so personal and hostile after midnight that they drew a reprimand from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who is presiding over the trial.
Several senators said they were particularly piqued by the managers’ repeated insistence — put most bluntly by Mr. Nadler, who at one point accused Republican senators of “treacherous” behavior — that the Senate was abetting a cover-up of Mr. Trump’s misconduct and preparing to hold a sham trial by rejecting Democrats’ demands for witnesses and documents.
“What Chairman Nadler said and how he conducted himself was outrageous and an insult to the Senate,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “We don’t need to continue the clown circus that started over in the House.”“What Chairman Nadler said and how he conducted himself was outrageous and an insult to the Senate,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “We don’t need to continue the clown circus that started over in the House.”
The tenor of the House Democrats’ presentation on Tuesday also bothered some Democratic senators, who took issue with what they characterized as an overly accusatory tone by the impeachment managers. Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, told reporters that Mr. Nadler, who at one point accused Republican senators of “treacherous” behavior, “could have chosen better words.” The tenor of the House Democrats’ presentation on Tuesday also bothered some Democratic senators, who took issue with what they characterized as an overly accusatory tone by the impeachment managers. Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, told reporters that Mr. Nadler “could have chosen better words.”
Lawmakers also continued to clash over whether the Senate should subpoena additional witnesses and documents. While Republicans succeeded on Tuesday in turning back repeated Democratic attempts to issue subpoenas, the issue remains a flash point that is likely to resurface next week after both sides make arguments in the case. Even as the House managers began laying out their case, newly released emails revealed additional evidence of friction between the Defense Department and the White House over a freeze sought by the president on military assistance to Ukraine. The emails, released just before midnight on Tuesday as a result of a Freedom of Information lawsuit, underscored the confusion and surprise among lawmakers, including some prominent Republicans, learned that the military assistance to Ukraine had been held up.
On Wednesday, Mr. Schiff appeared eager to address the criticism. He opened by thanking senators for listening attentively during Tuesday’s debate and he asked for their patience during what he promised would be detailed presentations, adding: “We have some very long days yet to come.” Arguing for the prosecution, Mr. Schiff delved deeply into the details of the Ukraine pressure campaign, citing specific dates and meetings. But he also sought to pull back the lens, telling senators that they must act to remove Trump or “we will write the history of our decline with our own hand.”
In making his arguments, Mr. Schiff sought to tap into the weight of history. He quoted Alexander Hamilton’s warning about “a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits, despotic in his ordinary demeanor, known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty.” Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, described the effort to smear campaign against Marie L. Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine. Representative Jason Crow of Colorado discussed the national security implications of withholding security aid from Ukraine. Representative Val Demings of Florida told senators about the effort to withhold a White House meting that Ukraine wanted until the country announced investigations into the Bidens.
Mr. Schiff heaped praise on government officials who agreed to testify in the House investigation despite objections from the president. Mr. Trump had at one point embraced the idea of pushing for a quick dismissal of the case against him, but his lawyers chose not to take that opportunity on Wednesday. Republican leaders discouraged the defense team from seeking a vote this week that would almost certainly have failed, dividing Republicans and dealing Mr. Trump an early symbolic defeat.
“Notwithstanding his unprecedented and wholesale obstruction of the investigation,” he told senators, “you will hear and read testimony from courageous public servants who upheld their oath to the Constitution and their legal obligations to comply with congressional action despite a categorical order by President Trump not to cooperate.” A motion to dismiss the case could still be offered later in the trial.
The House inquiry that Mr. Schiff led conducted 18 depositions behind closed doors — but open to House Republicans on the relevant committees — including members of the president’s national security staff, diplomats, budget officials and Pentagon aides. Twelve of them testified in high-profile public hearings, laying out in gripping detail the pressure campaign on Ukraine’s government. Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Fandos, Emily Cochrane, Catie Edmondson and Peter Baker.
In two weeks of public hearings, the civil servants from within Mr. Trump’s own government offered blockbuster revelations about the actions of the presidents and a rogue group of officials who sidestepped the usual diplomatic channels to implement the president’s wishes.
The White House blocked the testimony of twelve witnesses, including John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser; Mick Mulvaney, the president’s acting chief of staff; Robert Blair, a senior aide to Mr. Mulvaney; and Michael Duffey, a White House budget official who worked on Ukraine issues.
Nicholas Fandos, Emily Cochrane and Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.