US Senate wraps up Donald Trump impeachment trial

US House of Representatives managers said President Donald Trump was a threat to American democracy.

‘What the house Democrats have done … is outrageous’: Jay Sekulow in the Senate on Tuesday. Picture: AP

US House of Representatives managers said President Donald Trump was a threat to American democracy, while his defence team countered that Democrats were trying to undermine two elections, in their final arguments in his Senate impeachment trial on Tuesday AEDT.

With Democrats set to fall well short of the two-thirds threshold needed to remove the President from office in the final vote later this week, they used their turns at the lectern to issue a warning to the Senate, focusing on what they saw as the danger presented by Mr Trump remaining in office.

“He has betrayed our nat­ional security and he will do so again,” said Democrat Adam Schiff, the lead impeachment manager and chairman of the house intelligence committee.

“He has compromised our elections and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is … Now, do impartial justice and convict him.”

The two articles of impeachment centre on Mr Trump pressing Ukraine to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden and other matters that could help Mr Trump politically in this year’s election, and the President’s ­alleged efforts to obstruct congress’s inquiry into those actions.

Mr Trump has denied wrongdoing and again called impeachment a hoax on Twitter. His legal team, in their presentation, painted Democrats’ pursuit of impeachment as purely political, driven by a longstanding dislike of Mr Trump.

“At the end of the day, this is an effort to overturn the results of one election and to try to interfere in the coming election that begins today in Iowa,” said White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

“What the house Democrats have done to this nation, to the constitution, to the office of the president, to the President himself and to this body is outrageous,” said another Trump team lawyer, Jay Sekulow.

The two sides gave their final pitches to the jury of 100 senators who had largely made up their minds on impeachment, broadly unmoved by three weeks of presentations and arguments.

An acquittal for Mr Trump is expected on Thursday. Twenty Republicans would have to join the entire Democratic caucus to vote to remove the President. No Republicans have said they favour impeachment, and just two supported Democrats’ effort last week to seek more evidence in the trial, which failed 51-49.

Democratic senators emerged from the trial frustrated that most GOP senators had rejected bringing in new witnesses and information. Republicans countered that the house ­impeachment probe should have sought more evidence, which was blocked by the White House, before turning the matter over to the Senate.

“I’m trying to find the Senate rule that says for senators to plug their ears with cotton so they don’t have to listen to the hard facts,” said Democrat senator Ron Wyden.

Some Republicans, including senators Pat Roberts and Lamar Alexander, said they believed Mr Trump engaged in improper behaviour, but that it didn’t rise to an impeachable offence. But ­others were unconvinced.

Mr Trump’s defence team “raised a reasonable doubt as to the crime — the whatever — that was alleged”, Republican senator Bill Cassidy said.

Mr Trump is scheduled to give his State of the Union speech on Wednesday, in the chamber where the house ­approved the articles of impeachment in December. Some Republicans hoped he would move beyond impeachment in the annual speech.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll on Monday found a majority of voters believed Mr Trump abused his power and ­obstructed congress. But there wasn’t majority support for removing him from office. The poll found 49 per cent said he should be allowed to finish his term, compared with 46 per cent who said he should be removed. Mr Trump’s job ­approval in the January poll stood at 46 per cent with 51 per cent disapproving, in line with results throughout his presidency.

The Wall Street Journal