Schiff, who led the House in its efforts to pass two articles of impeachment against Trump in December, spoke on the Senate floor for more than two hours.
He made lofty arguments about historical precedent, warning that if Trump is not removed, future presidents will feel free to seek foreign help with elections.
Trump was impeached over his efforts to pressure Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to launch investigations into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter, along with a debunked conspiracy theory alleging Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
While Trump sought those investigations, his administration was withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine without providing a clear explanation. Democrats also impeached Trump for blocking the House’s investigation into the matter, by refusing to hand over any documents and directing key witnesses not to comply with Congress.
Schiff began his remarks by tying the founding fathers’ “prescient” views about impeachment to Trump through a quote from Alexander Hamilton:
“When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits — despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'”
Schiff quickly moved to establish that Trump’s dealings with Ukraine constituted abuses of the presidency – a preemptive strike against Trump’s attorneys, who maintain that the president has done nothing wrong.
Trump, Schiff said, “does not, under our laws and under our constitution, have a right to use the powers of his office to corruptly solicit foreign aid, prohibited foreign aid, in his re-election.”
“He does not have the right to withhold official presidential acts to secure that assistance, and he certainly does not have the right to undermine our elections and place our security at risk for his own personal benefit,” Schiff said. “No president, Republican or Democrat, can be permitted to do that.”
Schiff also employed the words of acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who in October admitted – then tried to walk back – that the Ukraine aid was tied to investigations.
If this was allowed to stand, Schiff argued, there was no limit to the presidential malfeasance Americans would be told to just “get over it” in the future.
“Are we to accept, ‘Well, the president says there was no quid pro quo, I guess that closes the case!'” Schiff asked rhetorically.
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/trump-impeachment-trial-schumer-says-dems-wont-trade-bolton-for-biden.html
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