Donald Trump’s impeachment trial continues
An audio recording has emerged of US President Donald Trump appearing to say he wanted to ‘get rid of’ the then US ambassador in Ukraine as impeachment trial continues.
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US President Donald Trump has been accused of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress as an audio recording has emerged of him appearing to say he wanted to “get rid of” the then US ambassador in Ukraine.
Democrats serving as prosecutors in US President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial have argued he improperly impeded an investigation by Congress into suspicions he coerced Ukraine’s government to investigate former-vice president Joe Biden.
In their third and final day of opening arguments, Democratic politicians tried to show that the Republican president was guilty of obstructing Congress by barring key witnesses and withholding documents from the investigation.
“President Trump tried to cheat, he got caught and then he worked hard to cover it up,”
Democratic representative Hakeem Jeffries said in his opening argument on Friday.
Mr Trump denies any wrongdoing, while his Republican allies have argued his conduct does not rise to the level of an impeachable offence.
In a July 25 phone call, Mr Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Mr Trump temporarily withheld $US391 million in US military aid to Ukraine, which Democrats say was leverage for his demands.
ABC News on Friday reported about an audio recording from April 2018 in which Mr Trump is heard to say he wants then US ambassador in Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, fired.
Mr Trump fired Ms Yovanovitch in May 2019.
“Get rid of her!” Mr Trump said in the recording, according to ABC News. “Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it.”
If true, that would bolster Democrats’ argument that Mr Trump associates spent nearly a year trying to oust her from the post because they saw her as an obstacle in their efforts to pressure Ukraine.
He has repeatedly criticised his accusers and this morning told his 71.5 million Twitter followers,: “The Do Nothing Democrats just keep repeating and repeating, over and over, the same old ‘stuff’ on the Impeachment Hoax”.
Once Democrats today conclude their opening arguments, the president’s legal team will have up to 24 hours over three days to mount a defence.
Senate Republicans are expected to acquit Trump with a two-thirds vote of the chamber is required to eject him from office.
The Do Nothing Democrats just keep repeating and repeating, over and over again, the same old “stuff†on the Impeachment Hoax. They want to use up ALL of their time, even though it is the wrong thing to do. They ought to go back to work for our great American people!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2020
CASE ‘LOADED WITH LIES’
US President Donald Trump has fulminated against his impeachment trial as Democrats prepared to resume making their case to the Senate on why he should be removed from office.
Mr Trump, who returned to Washington late on Wednesday from the World Economic Forum in Davos, began his day with a volley of angry early morning tweets from the White House.
The Democrat House would not give us lawyers, or not one witness, but now demand that the Republican Senate produce the witnesses that the House never sought, or even asked for? They had their chance, but pretended to rush. Most unfair & corrupt hearing in Congressional history!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2020
No matter what you give to the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, it will never be enough!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2020
The Democrats & Shifty Schiff, whose presentation to the Senate was loaded with lies and misrepresentations, are refusing to state that the Obama Administration withheld aid from many countries including Ukraine, Pakistan, Philippines, Egypt, Honduras, & Mexico. Witch Hunt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2020
The Republican president accused Democrats from the House of Representatives of making a case for his impeachment to the Senate that was “loaded with lies and misrepresentations.”
He attacked Adam Schiff, the chief House prosecutor, in starkly personal terms, calling him “Shifty Schiff,” and retweeting criticism of the California politician made by presidential supporters to the Fox News television network.
TRUMP LABELLED A ‘DESPOT’
It came a day after he was labelled a “despot” and “tyrant” by Democratic prosecutors as they began a marathon 24-hour presentation of their case at his historic impeachment trial.
Congressman Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee whose probe into Mr Trump’s relationship with Ukraine has dogged the President for months, said the trial would prove had used his position “to cheat” in the upcoming election.
Mr Trump is accused of pressuring his Ukraine counterpart to investigate his 2020 political rival, Joe Biden and his family, and is being impeached on two counts: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
“President Trump solicited foreign interference in our democratic elections, abusing the power of his office to seek help from abroad to improve his real action prospects at home,” Mr Schiff said in his opening statement.
“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. In other words, to cheat.”
He said the framers of the US constitution designed impeachment to deal with behaviour such as Mr Trump’s.
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“We should not imagine for one moment that they lacked basic common sense, or refuse to apply it ourselves,” Mr Schiff said of the founding fathers.
“They knew what it was like to live under a despot and risked their lives to be free of it.”
Mr Schiff is one of seven Democratic impeachment managers from the House who will present arguments to the Republican-held Senate for up to 24 hours over three days.
Mr Trump’s lawyers will be given the same amount of time to respond, with opening statements expected to conclude early next week.
Ahead of proceedings, Republican Senator Lindsay Graham said Democrats were on a partisan “crusade” to end Mr Trump’s presidency and overturn the 2016 election.
“If I were the President, I wouldn’t co-operate with these guys at all,” he said.
“I really do believe that the best person, group of people, to pick a president, are the voters, not a bunch of partisan politicians.”
Although the impeachment trial could theoretically unseat Mr Trump, he again shrugged off proceedings, joking in a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that he would testify if his lawyers let him and that he’d like to be at the trial so he could “sit right in the front row and stare into their corrupt faces”.
Labelling Mr Schiff a “con job” and a “corrupt politician”, Mr Trump said he would not let former National Security Adviser John Bolton, whom Democrats want to testify at the trial, revoke his executive privilege to appear at the hearings.
“He knows some of my thoughts. He knows what I think about leaders,” Mr Trump said.
“What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader, and it’s not very positive? And then I have to deal on behalf of the country?”
“It’s going to make the job really hard.”
Mr Trump also dismissed Democrat attempts to subpoena evidence from the White House, saying he wasn’t ready to hand it over.
“Honestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material,” he said.
Democrats yesterday also dismissed reports they were considering a “witness swap” between Mr Bolton in order to hear testimony from Mr Biden’s son, Hunter, whose role at corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma is at the heart of Mr Trump’s request for an investigation last July by the country’s newly installed president.
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“That trade is not on the table,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The arguments followed a long and bitter legal stoush on day one that lasted almost 13 hours until the early morning and drew a rebuke to both sides from US Chief Justice John Roberts.
The third impeachment trial in history had some early setbacks for both sides.
The Senate denied 11 Democratic attempts to introduce evidence and witnesses to the trial.
The final move on Tuesday was to approve trial rules proposed by Mr McConnell which will allow three days for each side to present their opening arguments and which admitted more previous evidence into the trial than Republicans had at first intended.
After a push from moderate Republicans, Mr McConnell conceded some early ground and amended the rules to allow evidence from last year’s House hearings to be automatically admitted.
Following opening arguments, each side will have 16 hours to present questions, before a vote on whether further evidence and witness testimony will be admitted, which is likely to occur early next week.
With the 100 senators forced to sit from 1pm with few breaks and banned from talking, using any technology or consuming anything water or milk, tempers have started fraying in the sittings.