WASHINGTON -- Democratic House prosecutors argued in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial Thursday that Trump was swept up by a "completely bogus" Ukraine theory pushed by attorney Rudy Giuliani that led to an abuse of presidential power and then impeachment.
House impeachment managers, led by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., began the second day of their opening arguments against Trump by focusing on claims of abuse of power, one of the two articles of impeachment approved last month by the House.
The Senate reconvened Thursday afternoon for the trial -- only the third of a sitting U.S. president. The Democratic-led House has also charged Trump with obstruction of Congress.
The Democrats pressed their case into Thursday evening and will wrap up their final day of arguments today. Trump's defense is expected to begin its presentation Saturday.
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The crux of the House case is the allegation that Trump withheld military aid and a White House meeting with Ukraine's new president to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a political rival, as well as Biden's son, Hunter.
"You can imagine what a danger that presents to this country," Schiff said.
Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company while his father was U.S. vice president.
As the Democrats pressed their case before Senate jurors, they displayed video images of the nation's top FBI and Homeland Security officials warning the public off the theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
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"This theory was brought to you by the Kremlin," Schiff said. "So we're not talking about generic interference ... what Donald Trump wanted investigated or announced, [was] this completely bogus, Kremlin-pushed conspiracy theory."
It was just one of 10 separate ways, the prosecutors argued, that Trump abused power for his personal political benefit ahead of this fall's presidential election.
The Democrats also detailed their defense of the elder Biden's actions regarding Ukraine in anticipation that those actions will be a major portion of the White House's defense later this week. The Democrats said Biden's actions to oust the Ukrainian prosecutor general were in line with official U.S. policy at the time and were not done to benefit an energy company connected to his son.
"The allegations against Biden are completely groundless," said Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, another impeachment manager.
But Republican senators said the Democrats' focus on the Bidens made the former vice president and his son fair game for Trump's defense team.
"It means when President Trump's lawyers stand up and present their defense, that they are going to have the opportunity to present the very significant evidence that's supported and still supports a serious investigation into corruption at Burisma and ultimately whether Joe Biden participated in that corruption," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told reporters Thursday evening.
In 2016, Biden was the Obama administration's point person on Ukraine policy and led a pressure campaign on the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, whom the administration believed was not doing enough to root out corruption among Ukraine's politicians. Shokin had previously investigated Burisma, and Hunter Biden was not accused of any wrongdoing.
Garcia noted that Trump and Republicans didn't focus on Biden's actions toward Ukraine until 2019, when "Biden became the front-runner for the Democratic nomination and polls showed that he had the largest head-to-head lead against President Trump. That became a problem."
She also referred to a letter from Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and other senators in the Ukraine Caucus to argue that Biden's desire to see Shokin removed reflected official U.S. policy and was not a sign of personal corruption.
But a significant number of Senate Republicans remained unmoved and played down the case from House managers, dismissing it as repetitive and unpersuasive as they sought to counter Democrats' narrative at a time when Trump's lawyers must stay silent in the Senate Chamber.
GRAHAM, BARR FLASHBACKS
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., one of the impeachment managers, responded to the criticism that Trump's actions don't amount to a "high crime" by quoting one of the president's closest allies, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Nadler showed a 21-year-old video clip of Graham, who then served as a House manager during the 1999 impeachment of President Bill Clinton, explaining what he understood the founders to have meant by "high crimes."
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"What's a high crime? How about if an important person hurts somebody of low means? It's not very scholarly, but I think it's the truth," Graham said then. "I think that's what they meant by high crimes. It doesn't have to be a crime. It's just when you start using your office, and you're acting in a way that hurts people, you've committed a high crime." Graham was serving in the U.S. House at the time.
Reporters who were in the Senate chamber Thursday noted on Twitter that Graham was absent from the room when the vintage clip was played.
Earlier, while arguing that a crime is not necessary to impeach a president, Nadler cited the past words of two Trump allies: Alan Dershowitz, who is serving on the president's impeachment team, and Attorney General William Barr.
Nadler played a video of Dershowitz speaking in 1998 during the Clinton impeachment proceedings, in which Dershowitz said, "It certainly doesn't have to be a crime if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and poses great danger to our liberty. You don't need a technical crime."
Dershowitz plans to argue as part of Trump's defense that House Democrats are wrongly trying to remove Trump from office without an underlying crime.
Nadler then cited Barr's view, voiced 18 months ago, that "presidents cannot be indicted or criminally investigated."
"But that's OK, because they can be impeached," Nadler said, recounting Barr's view. "That's the safeguard."
Nadler began laying out the case against Trump on the charge of abuse of power and said the White House lawyers cannot, and will not, refute the evidence.
Nadler said Trump asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens was bad enough. "Not that the active solicitation itself, just the ask, constitutes an abuse of power," Nadler said. "But President Trump went further in order to secure his favor from Ukraine. He withheld two official acts of immense value."
"No president has ever used his office to compel a foreign nation to help him cheat in our elections," Nadler told the senators. He said the nation's founders would be shocked. "The president's conduct is wrong. It is illegal. It is dangerous."
"The Constitution is not a suicide pact," Nadler said. "It does not leave us stuck with presidents who abuse their power in unforeseen ways that threaten our security and democracy. Until recently, it did not occur to me that our president would call a foreign leader and demand a sham investigation meant to kneecap his political opponents, all in exchange for releasing vital military aid that the president was already required by law to provide."
Nadler speculated that the White House lawyers will focus on complaints about process and the managers' motives, but not the facts of the testimony.
"If the president had any exculpatory witnesses, even a single one, he would be demanding their appearance here instead of urging you not to permit additional witnesses," Nadler said.
Senators were permitted Thursday to review supplemental testimony submitted by an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, Jennifer Williams, who testified in the House impeachment inquiry, and was among those who had concerns about Trump's actions. Democrats said the supplemental testimony, which is classified, bolsters their impeachment case. A lawyer for Williams declined to comment.
Ahead of the day's proceedings, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said the Democrats were putting forward "admirable presentations." But he said, "they've basically got about one hour of presentation, and they gave it six times on Tuesday and eight times yesterday. There's just not much new here."
During the dinner break, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said it seemed like "Groundhog Day in the Senate."
The top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, acknowledged that many senators "really don't want to be here."
But Schumer said Schiff has been outlining a compelling case that many Republicans are hearing for only the first time. He said they can't help but be "glued" to the testimony.
Most senators, even Republicans, sat at their desks throughout the afternoon session, as the rules stipulate, and not as many of them were yawning or standing up to stretch as during the previous long nights.
To help senators pass the time, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr of North Carolina, passed out lunch favors of fidget spinners, stress balls and other toys.
TRUMP WEIGHS IN
Meanwhile, Trump, who was scheduled to travel to Florida on Thursday afternoon, weighed in via Twitter on the issue of whether the Senate should call witnesses.
He argued that Democrats are opposed to a deal to trade witnesses because they are afraid of what the GOP-called witnesses would reveal.
"The Democrats don't want a Witness Trade because Shifty Schiff, the Biden's, the fake Whistleblower (& his lawyer), the second Whistleblower (who vanished after I released the Transcripts), the so-called 'informer', & many other Democrat disasters, would be a BIG problem for them!" he tweeted.
Democrats have repeatedly said they oppose a witness trade because they believe the witnesses Republicans would like to call are not relevant to the issue of Trump's alleged misconduct.
It is not clear how much of the trial Trump has watched live.
Graham told reporters Thursday that Hunter Biden's service on the board of a Ukrainian gas company deserves more scrutiny. But he said it would be better to handle that through the "oversight" process than by calling him as a witness in Trump's Senate trial.
"I want to end this thing sooner rather than later," Graham said of the Senate trial. "I don't want to turn it into a circus. ... I'm not going to use my vote to extend the trial."
Hunter Biden's membership on the board of Burisma, a company scrutinized for corruption, coincided with his father's service as vice president.
"Nobody has done much looking at what happened in the Ukraine about Hunter Biden," said Graham, who has previously suggested that the Judiciary Committee would look into the matter.
It's unclear how much time they will actually take, but Trump's team is not expected to finish Saturday, according to a person unauthorized to discuss the planning and granted anonymity. The Senate is expected to take only Sunday off and push the trial into next week.
After that senators will face the question of whether they do, or do not, want to call witnesses to testify.
Information for this article was contributed by John Wagner, Felicia Sonmez, Seung Min Kim, Karoun Demirjian, Elise Viebeck, Colby Itkowitz, Mike DeBonis and Robert Costa of The Washington Post; by Lisa Mascaro, Eric Tucker, Zeke Miller, Mary Clare Jalonick, Alan Fram, Andrew Taylor, Laurie Kellman, Matthew Daly, Padmananda Rama and Bill Barrow of The Associated Press; and by Eileen Sullivan of The New York Times.
A Section on 01/24/2020