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AFP
Washington
US President Donald Trump fulminated against his impeachment trial on Thursday as Democrats prepared to resume making their case to the Senate on why he should be removed from office.
Trump, who returned to Washington late on Wednesday from the World Economic Forum in Davos, began his day with a volley of angry early morning tweets from the White House.
The Republican president accused Democrats from the House of Representatives of making a case for his impeachment to the Senate that was “loaded with lies and misrepresentations.” He attacked Adam Schiff, the chief House prosecutor, in starkly personal terms, calling him “Shifty Schiff,” and retweeting criticism of the California lawmaker made by presidential supporters to the Fox News television network.
Schiff and the other House Democratic prosecutors presented their opening arguments in the Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday, accusing Trump of seeking to cheat in the upcoming presidential election.
Trump is accused of withholding military aid from Ukraine to pressure his Ukrainian counterpart to announce an investigation into potential November presidential election rival Joe Biden.
“President Trump withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to a strategic partner at war with Russia to secure foreign help with his re-election,” Schiff said. “In other words, to cheat.” “And when he was caught, he used the powers of (his) office to obstruct the investigation into his own misconduct,” said Schiff, who headed the probe that led to Trump’s December 18 impeachment by the Democratic-controlled House.
House Democrats have a total of 24 hours to present their case that Trump is guilty of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
After laying out the detailed evidence against Trump on Wednesday, they are expected to focus on the legal and constitutional aspects of the case.
White House lawyers will then have 24 hours, likely starting on Saturday, to present their defence of Trump, just the third president in US history to face an impeachment trial.
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24/01/2020
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