Politics: Trump’s Impeachment Trial

By Marissa Martin

Senators reconvened in the Capitol for the third day of President Trump's impeachment trial on Thursday, with House Democrats arguing the president abused his power by pressuring Ukraine for his own personal gain and must be removed from office.House Judiciary Committee Chairman Nadler explained that he and his fellow impeachment managers would walk senators through the legal underpinnings each of the two articles of impeachment, before applying the law to the facts collected in the House's investigation."Since President George Washington took office in 1789, no president has abused his power in this way," Nadler said. "Let me say that again: No president has ever used his office to compel a foreign nation to help him cheat in our elections. Prior presidents would be shocked to the core by such conduct, and rightly so." Thursday was the second of three days of opening arguments by the House managers. Democratic senators in the Capitol seemed bolstered by the previous day's proceedings, praising Representative Adam Schiff for laying out a detailed timeline of Mr. Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.

Schiff, Nadler and the five other managers presented a mountain of evidence, punctuating their presentations with clips of House testimony from officials who witnessed many of the events in question, as well as the president's own words. But they also highlighted key portions of the factual record that remain a mystery, urging senators to issue subpoenas to compel the administration to produce key documents and witnesses that could shed more light on the president's actions and motivations.