Dems Detail Obstruction to Wrap Up Trump Prosecution

“That’s not true,” Senator Susan Collins cried out as other GOP lawmakers tut-tutted in agreement from the floor.

Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said the report was completely false.

“Not true. None of us have been told that by the president, there’s been no indication of that at all,” Lankford said. “I was visibly upset, the whole room was visibly upset on our side of it. To say that is insulting and demeaning to everyone to say we somehow live in fear and that the president has threatened all of us to put our head on a pike — I don’t understand even where he comes off on that.”

Early Friday, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, one of seven Democratic impeachment managers who act as prosecutors in the trial, emphasized that Senators should consider that there was a “two-pronged approach” to Trump’s obstruction.

“The first prong: block Congress and the American people from learning about the whistleblower complaint,” Jeffries said. “Second, try to convince President Trump to lift the hold on security assistance before anyone can find out about it and use that evidence against them.”

As to the transcript of the July 25 call, Jeffries asked senators to consider the involvement of John Eisenberg, general counsel for the National Security Council, in reviewing the transcript and moving it then to a private server.

According to the House impeachment managers’ brief, Tim Morrison, former top national security adviser to Trump, raised issue with the call to Eisenberg and other NSC attorneys saying the summary would be “damaging” if leaked publicly.

For some yet undiscovered reason, Jeffries said, Eisenberg and his deputy Michael Ellis, ended up restricting access to the call transcript by placing it on a highly classified server although it did not contain any highly classified information.

To drive that point home, senators were played a clip of Morrison’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee where he dubbed the action “a mistake” last month.

Jeffries' voice boomed through the chamber.

“Why did Eisenberg place the summary on a server for classified material?” he asked. “Did anyone senior to Eisenberg direct him to hide the call record? Why did the call record remain on the classified server, even after the so-called error was discovered? Who ordered the cover up?”

When impeachment manager Val Demmings stepped to the podium after a short recess Friday, she said Trump’s obstruction of Congress was “categorical, indiscriminate and unprecedented.”

It wasn’t just the White House that refused to comply with five congressional subpoenas for witness testimony and other documents, it was the entire executive branch, she said.

That “total defiance” of the House’s impeachment inquiry, Demmings said, left no question that Trump directed the refusals.

Trump seemed to confirm that defiance this week when he told reporters gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: “Honestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material.”

Demmings conceded that the president is afforded privileges no other American dare imagine, but told fellow lawmakers that executive power does not come without strings or restraints.

“Executive power without any sort of restraint, without oversight and without any checks and balances is absolute power,” she said. “And we know what has been said about absolute power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now, I know, no other American could seek to obstruct the investigation into his or her wrongdoing in this way.”

Texas Representative Sylvia Garcia, another Democratic impeachment manager, worked to persuade lawmakers that the Trump administration’s brazen cover-up happened “in plain sight.”

“Trump issued an order barring the entire executive branch from participating in the inquiry,” she said. “No cooperation. No negotiation. Nothing. Or, as we say in Texas, ‘nada.’”

Garcia appeared to bristle from the floor when she rattled off a list of records the White House has flatly refused to provide Congress, among them former ambassador John Bolton’s notes and a first-person cable from senior Ukraine diplomat Bill Taylor to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Then, she noted, there were the hundreds of emails between the Office of Management and Budget and other agencies that followed Trump’s directive to hold aid to Ukraine.

Those documents may never have become public, let alone come under congressional scrutiny, if they were not turned over to third parties by way of a court order under the Freedom of Information Act.

American Oversight, a nonpartisan, nonprofit ethics watchdog, filed a request for some of these related documents — which the OMB fulfilled two minutes before their deadline to respond. The documents, while heavily redacted, contained references to the organization’s Acting Director Russell Vought and Michael Duffy, the OMB’s associate director for national security.

Before focusing on obstruction Friday, lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff concluded the presentation on Trump’s abuse of power.

If American foreign policy was guided by a wheeling and dealing mentality, it would “wither and die,” Schiff said.

Russia has not only been emboldened on the battlefield after the aid was withheld but it also harmed Ukraine’s negotiating prowess. Without American backing — U.S. aid contributes to 10% of Ukraine’s defense budget — it put the U.S. and Ukraine in the crosshairs of a potential diplomatic and national security crisis.

“It’s painful to see our allies distance themselves from the United States,” Schiff said. “It’s more than painful, it’s dangerous.”

House Democrats laid out the argument earlier this week to remove Trump from office because he abused his power when he withheld $391 million in military aid and a coveted White House meeting from Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelensky. The meeting was contingent on Zelensky announcing both an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden — a top 2020 political rival — and a discredited theory about the 2016 presidential election.

This theory, which involved the Bidens and the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, drew interest from Republican senators during the trial Friday. Lawmakers like Lindsey Graham and James Risch could be seen with a handout titled, “BURISMA TIMELINE,” accompanied by yellow highlighters and notations.

On Saturday, the baton is passed to Trump’s defense team for opening arguments, a welcome transition for impeachment managers like Schiff who admitted Friday, with deep bags beneath his eyes, that he was wearied.

“I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I can only imagine how you feel but I’m also very deeply grateful for how you have attended to these presentations and discussions,” Schiff said.

Striving to keep the impeachment managers' closing arguments succinct, the California Democrat also quipped, “To be immortal, you don’t have to be eternal. And I will try my best not to be eternal.”

As for the White House’s opening arguments, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed Friday that they would begin on Saturday at 10 a.m. and rest around 1 p.m.

However long resting the defense may take, once over, lawmakers then submit questions to Chief Justice John Roberts over a 16-hour period. As chief arbiter, Roberts has authority to select which questions are asked. He will also identify which senator posed each question.

Though Friday’s closing arguments from impeachment managers is the final chance to reiterate the case for removal, the looming trial schedule puts the White House in position to have the last word.

Though many Republican Senators have emphasized throughout the trial they would like to skip witnesses and wrap up impeachment proceedings to return to the regular workday, some remain coy about where they will ultimately come down on the witness question.

The contention over the need to call witnesses heated up on Friday as reporters pressed Jay Sekulow about a recording of the purported voice of Trump, demanding that his former Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovtich be removed from her post.

While Sekulow declined to comment then to a scrum of reporters, a source from Trump’s legal team said in a background call on impeachment Friday, they would not address the president’s alleged comments to “get rid of her.”

Notably, though the days and nights of impeachment are long, the proceedings continue to hold the interest of Americans watching from home.

According to the Nielsen television rating system, some 7.5 million people tuned in during the primetime slot from 8 to 11 p.m. on Day 1 of the trial. Former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment garnered 2.3 million viewers, though the advent of a 24-7 news cycle available through every phone, computer and television wasn’t as prominent at the time.

In comparison to special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony on his final report last July, impeachment viewership comes close. Some 12.9 million viewers tuned in for the special counsel’s testimony. All news networks combined registered 11 million viewers for the first two days of impeachment.

Viewership declined over all six major news networks on Day 3, however, with just 8.8 million viewers tuning in. That could soon change when Trump’s attorneys, who have exhibited a fierce defense of the president so far, take the floor on Saturday.

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