At the end of the first day of the trial of US President Donald Trump in the Senate on Wednesday / January 22, 2020, Democrats called on the Republicans to show "sufficient courage" to search for the truth. In the ongoing pleadings, they accuse President Trump of making a scheme involving corruption and fraud to pressure Ukraine, to help him win a new term in the elections scheduled for November 3.
Addressing the 100 senators who take the role of the jury in the trial, the chief prosecutor, Representative Adam Schiff, said, "To implement this corrupt plan, President Trump pressed the President of Ukraine to announce the opening of investigations into two allegations that were refuted and would have been in favor of Trump´s presidential campaign." For the year 2020 "pleading with Republicans that" You should want to discover the truth. "
Schiff, in a dramatic argument with the help of his team of six other members, presented the two accusations leveled by Trump´s House of Representatives of abusing power and blocking the work of Congress.
After the first day of the marathon that lasted for nine consecutive hours, in which the frameworks and procedures of this historic trial were determined, the members of the Senate listened in silence to the plaintiffs as they retrieved the facts of the case, while the prosecution team cited several sections of the statements made by members of the American administration before the Parliamentary Committee in the House of Representatives. Last November, before the Intelligence Committee (in the House of Representatives) headed by Representative Schiff.
Schiff said at the end of his pleading, addressing his words to the 53 unified Republicans so far in their support for Trump, and speaking of witnesses: "They risked everything they had, with their career path. I know what we ask of you can jeopardize your course, too, but if they (these) are Witnesses) were brave, so we can do the same too, calling on Republicans to “search for the whole truth about the extent of this corruption, because I consider that it is the people´s right to know this truth.”
He said, Donald Trump "put pressure on Ukraine to announce the opening of investigations" that could be useful in his election campaign, asking that one of them address Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who he might face in the coming elections, in order to contaminate his reputation.
He added that in order to achieve his goal "and" in other words to practice fraud, "the president in particular has" suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to a strategic ally fighting a war with Russia to obtain foreign aid in the US elections. "
Schiff, who is familiar with the case file of President Trump´s scandal with Akurania Ziyanski, detailed it by virtue of supervising the investigation in the House of Representatives since its inception, that after the matter was exposed, "(Trump) used his powers to obstruct the investigation" in Congress, stressing that no one is above the law In the United States, including the American president.
For his part, President Trump from Switzerland, where he was participating in the World Economic Forum in Davos, commented on the Senate trial with a torrent of tweets amounting to 150 tweets on "Twitter", breaking his record for one-day Twitter, which dates back to his 2016 campaign, describing the Democrats As "crazy people!" And that he was a victim of "intrigue" orchestrated by the democratic opposition.
Trump said he was "friendly" to attend the debates, sit in the first row and look at their eyes with contempt, but his attorneys did not support that.
Trump is the third president in US history to be tried under an isolation mechanism, after Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1999.
Like the two former presidents, it is expected that Trump will not be condemned under Republican control and full support of the Senate.
Nevertheless, the 47-seat Democrats hope to persuade public opinion that President Trump "has reneged on his constitutional division," within the 24-hour period of the plea available to them and spread over three days to achieve this.
On Thursday, the prosecution addresses the constitutional framework of the trial, provided that Friday´s pleadings are devoted to the behavior that led to the indictment of the president, while the defense pleadings will start from Saturday, January 25, 2020 and have the same deadline.
For his part, the personal lawyer for the American President, Jay Seculo, said on Wednesday that the constitution protects the privileges of the executive branch, and there is a reason for this "in his reference to the president´s immunity, denouncing the trial, which he considered" ridiculous "and" dangerous for the republic "months before the presidential elections.
After presenting the prosecution and defense arguments, 16 hours are reserved for senators to submit their questions in writing.
It is worth noting that the law requires all members to be present and that they are required throughout the trial to abide by their seats and to remain silent without resorting to their phones or computers, as it is prohibited to enter any electronic devices in the hall, in order to maintain fitness and norms during the deliberations.
It is expected that a first voting process will take place at the end of next week, in which the Senate will decide whether it approves to call new witnesses, which is demanded by the Democrats.
In order for the request to be decided positively, four of the 53 Republican members of the Senate must split from their party´s consensus and support the recall of witnesses, which seems unlikely now.
On Wednesday (22/1/21), the Democrats rejected a "deal" proposed by a number of Republicans, according to which it agreed to summon a prosecution witness in exchange for summoning Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden who is at the center of the controversy, since Trump asked Ukraine to open an investigation on it, which launched a process. Isolation in the House of Representatives, which voted by the majority on November 20, 2019.
The constitution requires a two-thirds majority to remove a president, a threshold that is now unlikely to be reached.
