Trump ‘can’t be trusted’

FEW DOUBTS: DEMOCRATS LAY OUT IMPEACHMENT ARGUMENT

Strong case the US president abused his powers for own gain.

Lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff called dramatically for the Senate to remove President Donald Trump from office on Thursday, saying the US leader cannot be trusted to put the country’s interests ahead of his own.

“The American people deserve a president they can count on, to put their interest first,” said Schiff.

His impassioned words capped a long day in which Democrats detailed Trump’s illicit scheme to pressure Ukraine to help his 2020 re-election campaign. “You can’t trust this president to do what is right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump,” Schiff added. “This is why, if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed.”

House impeachment managers mustered scores of videos, internal documents and extensive witness testimony to lay out a strong case that the US leader abused his powers. Schiff’s prosecution team detailed how Trump undertook last year to force Kiev to help him tarnish his possible 2020 re-election rival, former vice president Joe Biden. “President Trump used the powers of his office to solicit a foreign nation to interfere in our elections for his own personal benefit,” House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler told the chamber. “The president’s conduct is wrong. “It is illegal. And it is dangerous.”

The Democrats left few doubts Trump’s sole motivation in secretly freezing aid to Ukraine last July was to force Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce one investigation into Biden and a second into an unsupported story that Kiev helped Democrats in the 2016 election.

To puncture a key White House argument the US constitution requires a specific crime to remove a president, they played old videos in which two of Trump’s closest defenders, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and criminal defence attorney Alan Dershowitz, said abuse of power itself is an impeachable offence. – AFP

The president’s conduct is illegal, dangerous