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US House Democrats to Argue Trump Abused Presidency

Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON - U.S. House Democrats are starting three days of arguments
   Wednesday to make the case that President Donald Trump abused the
   presidency to try to help himself politically and should be removed
   from office.

   During 13 hours of debate extending in to early Wednesday, the House
   managers prosecuting the case against the country's 45th president lost
   vote after vote to the majority Republicans in the Senate to subpoena
   documents and witnesses about Trump's efforts to get Ukraine to
   investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic presidential rivals,
   former Vice President Joe Biden.

   But in the early afternoon, the Democrats will have the floor to
   themselves in the first of three eight-hour sessions where they plan to
   lay out details of how Trump tried last year to press Ukrainian
   President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to launch probes of Biden, his son Hunter
   Biden's work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked
   conspiracy theory that Ukraine tried to undermine Trump's 2016
   campaign.

   By Saturday, Trump's lawyers will start presenting their defense over
   three days. Trump faces two articles of impeachment, that he abused the
   presidency and obstructed congressional efforts to investigate his
   Ukraine-related actions.

   The seven Democrats laying out the case against Trump extensively
   previewed their case in the preliminary skirmishes they lost over the
   rules governing the impeachment trial, just the third such event in
   nearly 2 1/2 centuries of U.S. history. The lawmakers pointed to
   Trump's phone call last July asking for Zelenskiy to "do us a favor,"
   to open the Biden investigations at the same time he was temporarily
   withholding $391 million in military aid Kyiv wanted to help fight
   pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

   The Democrats contended that Trump had no interest in a broad effort to
   fight corruption in Ukraine as some Republicans have claimed, just that
   Zelenskiy announce the investigation of the Bidens. After a 55-day
   delay, Trump released the military assistance in September without
   Zelenskiy launching the Biden probes, which Republicans say is proof
   Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal -- the
   politically tinged investigations in exchange for the defense aid.

   Trump's lawyers say he was carrying out legitimate foreign relations
   with the eastern European country, did nothing wrong and should be
   quickly acquitted. They claimed the House of Representatives rushed to
   impeach Trump in a flawed process in which the president was not
   treated fairly.

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