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Dems say
oust
Trump or
he'll
betray
again;
'He is
who he
is'
By
LISA
MASCARO,
ERIC
TUCKER
and
ZEKE
MILLER
apnews.com
WASHINGTON
-
Closing
out
their
case,
House
Democrats
warned
in
Donald
Trump’s
impeachment
trial
that the
president
will
persist
in
abusing
his
power
and
endangering
American
democracy
unless
Congress
intervenes
to
remove
him
before
the 2020
election.
They
then
implored
Republican
senators
to allow
new
testimony
before
rendering
a final
verdict.
“Give
America
a fair
trial,”
Rep.
Adam
Schiff,
the lead
Democratic
impeachment
manager,
said
Friday.
“She’s
worth
it.”
Schiff
delivered
Democrats’
final
remarks
in the
Senate
trial
after
three
days of
methodical
and
impassioned
arguments
detailing
charges
that
Trump
abused
power by
asking
Ukraine
for
politically
motivated
probes
of
political
rivals,
then
obstructed
Congress’
investigation
into the
matter.
The
president’s
lawyers
get
their
first
chance
to
defend
him
Saturday,
and are
expected
to argue
he acted
appropriately.
The
opening
arguments
appear
to have
done
nothing
to shake
Republicans’
support
for
Trump or
persuade
enough
centrist
GOP
lawmakers
to call
for new
witnesses,
including
Trump’s
former
national
security
adviser
John
Bolton.
In his
final
appeal
to
lawmakers
and a
divided
nation,
Schiff
argued
that a
guilty
verdict
in the
Senate
is the
only
remedy
left to
curb
what he
called
the
“’imminent
threat”
posed to
the
nation
by
Trump’s
unconstitutional
impulses.
“He
is who
he is,”
Schiff
declared.
“You
know
it’s not
going to
stop.
... It’s
not
going to
stop
unless
the
Congress
does
something
about
it.”
The
moment
of
history
was
apparent,
only the
third
impeachment
trial of
a U.S.
president,
as were
the
partisan
views of
the
Trump
presidency
and the
effort
to end
it.
When
Schiff
cited a
news
story
with
someone
close to
Trump
saying
any
Republican
voting
with
Democrats
would
have
their
“head on
a pike,”
GOP
senators
in the
chamber
began
murmuring,
“That’s
not
true.”
The
House
impeached
Trump
last
month,
accusing
him of
abusing
his
office
by
asking
Ukraine
for
politically
motivated
probes
of Biden
and
other
matters
while
withholding
military
aid from
a U.S.
ally
that was
at war
with
bordering
Russia.
A second
article
of
impeachment
accuses
him of
obstructing
Congress
by
refusing
to turn
over
documents
or allow
officials
to
testify
in the
House
ensuing
probe.
Said
Trump
attorney
Jay
Sekulow,
“We’re
going to
rebut
and
refute,
and
we’re
going to
put on
an
affirmative
case
tomorrow.”
Republicans
are
defending
Trump’s
actions
as
appropriate
and are
casting
the
impeachment
trial as
a
politically
motivated
effort
to
weaken
him in
his
reelection
campaign.
Republicans
hold a
53-47
majority
in the
Senate,
and
eventual
acquittal
is
considered
likely.
Before
that,
senators
will
make a
critical
decision
next
week on
Democratic
demands
to hear
testimony
from top
Trump
aides,
including
Bolton
and
acting
chief of
staff
Mick
Mulvaney,
who
refused
to
appear
before
the
House.
It would
take
four
Republican
senators
to join
the
Democratic
minority
to seek
witnesses,
and so
far the
numbers
appear
lacking.
“This
needs to
end,”
said
Sen.
Lindsey
Graham,
R-S.C.,
a Trump
confidant.
With
Chief
Justice
John
Roberts
presiding,
Friday’s
session
opened
with an
overarching
case
from
Democrats
that
Trump’s
actions
with
Ukraine
were not
unique
but part
of a
pattern
of
“destructive
behavior”
now
threatening
the core
foundations
of
American
democracy.
Schiff
told the
senators
that
Trump
has
shown
repeatedly
that he
is
willing
to put
his
personal
political
interests
above
those of
the
country
he is
sworn to
protect.
The
evidence
shows,
he said,
that
Trump
bucked
the
advice
of his
own
national
security
apparatus
to chase
“kooky”
theories
about
Ukraine
pushed
by
lawyer
Rudy
Giuliani,
resulting
in “one
hell of
a
Russian
intelligence
coup”
that
benefited
Vladimir
Putin at
U.S.
expense.
This
was not
simply a
foreign
policy
dispute,
Schiff
argued,
but a
breach
of
long-held
American
values
for
Trump to
leverage
an ally
— in
this
case
Ukraine,
a
struggling
democracy
facing
down
Russian
troops —
for the
investigations
he
wanted
ahead of
2020.
When
the
House
started
investigating
his
actions,
Democrats
said,
Trump
blatantly
obstructed
the
probe.
Even
then-President
Richard
Nixon,
they
argued,
better
understood
the need
to
comply
with
Congress
in some
of its
oversight
requests.
Drawing
on
historical
figures,
from the
Founding
Fathers
to the
late GOP
Sen.
John
McCain
and the
fictional
Atticus
Finch,
Schiff
made his
arguments
emphatically
personal.
“The
next
time, it
just may
be you,”
he said,
pointing
at one
senator
after
another.
“Do you
think
for a
moment
that if
he felt
it was
in his
interest,
he
wouldn’t
ask you
to be
investigated?”
The
impeachment
trial is
set
against
the
backdrop
of the
2020
election,
as
voters
assess
Trump’s
presidency
and his
run for
a second
term.
Four
senators
who are
Democratic
presidential
candidates
are off
the
campaign
trail,
seated
as
jurors.
A
new poll
from The
Associated
Press-NORC
Center
for
Public
Affairs
Research
showed
the
public
slightly
more
likely
to say
the
Senate
should
convict
and
remove
Trump
from
office
than to
say it
should
not, 45%
to 40%.
But a
sizable
percentage,
14%,
said
they
didn’t
know
enough
to have
an
opinion.
One
issue
with
wide
agreement:
Trump
should
allow
top
aides to
appear
as
witnesses
at the
trial.
About 7
in 10
respondents
said so,
including
majorities
of
Republicans
and
Democrats,
according
to the
poll.
No
president
has ever
been
removed
by the
Senate,
neither
Andrew
Johnson
in 1868
nor Bill
Clinton
in 1999.
Nixon
left
office
before a
House
vote
that was
likely
to
impeach
him.
The
House
mounted
its
Trump
case
after a
government
whistleblower
complained
about
his July
2019
call
with
Ukraine.
The
House
relied
on
testimony
from
current
and
former
national
security
officials
and
diplomats,
many who
defied
White
House
instructions
not to
appear.
Evidence
presented
in the
House
probe
has
shown
that
Trump,
with
Giuliani,
pursued
investigations
of Biden
and his
son,
Hunter,
who
served
on a
Ukrainian
gas
company’s
board,
and
sought a
probe of
a
debunked
theory
that
Ukraine
interfered
in the
2016
U.S.
election.
It’s
a story
line
many in
the
president’s
camp are
still
pushing.
Giuliani,
in an
appearance
Friday
on “Fox
&
Friends,”
insisted
he would
present
evidence
on his
new
podcast.
At
close,
Schiff
predicted
the
Trump
team
will try
to
distract
senators
from the
case, in
part by
lodging
personal
attacks
against
all the
House
prosecutors.
He
reminded
senators
what is
at stake
and read
the
articles
of
impeachment
one more
time.
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