Closing arguments Monday in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial were directed more toward history than to sway the outcome, one final chance to influence public opinion and set the record ahead of his expected acquittal in the Republican-led Senate.
The House Democratic prosecutors drew on the Founding Fathers and common sense to urge senators — and Americans — to see that Trump's actions are not isolated but a pattern of behavior that, left unchecked, will allow him to "cheat"' in the 2020 election.
Closing arguments will resume Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.
Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff implored those few Republican senators who have acknowledged Trump's wrongdoing in the Ukraine matter to prevent a “runaway presidency” and stand up to say “enough.”
“For a man like Donald J. Trump, they gave you a remedy and meant for you to use it. They gave you an oath, and they meant for you to observe it,” Schiff said. "We have proven Donald Trump guilty. Now do impartial justice and convict him.”
The president's defense countered the Democrats have been out to impeach Trump since the start of his presidency, nothing short of an effort to undo the 2016 election and to try to shape the next one, as early primary voting begins Monday in Iowa.
“Leave it to the voters to choose,” said White House counsel Pat Cipollone, calling for an end to the partisan “era of impeachment.”
Closing arguments will end before Trump gives the annual State of the Union address. Then, at 4 p.m. Wednesday, senators will deliver an all-but-certain, party-line driven acquittal, bringing an end to the nation’s third impeachment trial in history.
Trump also will become only the second president in American history to deliver a State of the Union while under Senate trial for impeachment. On Jan. 19, 1999, Bill Clinton delivered his address while also under impeachment proceedings in the Senate.
Watch day 12 of the trial here.
On Friday, senators voted 51 to 49 to reject Democrats' demands that witnesses such as former national security adviser John Bolton be subpoenaed. Two Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine and Utah's Mitt Romney — crossed the aisle to vote with the Democratic caucus.
»MORE: Senate votes to block witnesses in Trump impeachment
After the vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed closing arguments will be held Monday and Tuesday and the overall vote on Wednesday.
Despite the Democrats singular focus on hearing new testimony, the Republican majority brushed past those demands to make this the first Senate impeachment trial without witnesses. Even new revelations Friday from Bolton did not sway GOP senators, who said they’d heard enough.
Democrats badly wanted testimony from Bolton, whose forthcoming book links Trump directly to the charges. But Bolton won’t be summoned, and none of this appeared to affect the trial’s expected outcome.
In an unpublished manuscript, Bolton writes the president asked him during an Oval Office meeting in early May to bolster his effort to get Ukraine to investigate Democrats, according to a person who read the passage and told The Associated Press. The person, who was not authorized to disclose contents of the book, spoke only on condition of anonymity.
»READ: The best lines from President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee was among several Republicans last Friday who voted to block additional witnesses and draw the trial to a close, even though he and others described Trump’s actions as “inappropriate” and “wrong.” Asked Sunday if he would want to hear Trump express regret, as Clinton did after his impeachment trial, Alexander said he doesn’t need to hear it.
“What I hope he would do is when he makes his State of the Union address, that he puts this completely behind him, never mentions it, and talks about what he thinks he's done for the country and where we're headed,” Alexander told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Alexander and other Republicans said that even if Trump committed offenses charged by the House, they are not impeachable — especially in an election year. They say voters should make that determination in November.
A NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday found majorities of American voters believe that Trump abused his power and obstructed Congress, but split largely among party lines over whether he should be removed from office.
The poll, conducted Jan. 26-29, found 46% of registered voters believed Trump should be removed from office as a result of the trial, vs. 49% who said he should remain — basically unchanged from a 48-48 split in December.
The U.S. Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate, or 67 senators, to convict in an impeachment trial.
Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, while Democrats hold 45. However, two Independents — including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of Vermont — regularly caucus with Democrats, giving the nation’s blue party 47 votes.
If the Senate votes along party lines regarding impeachment — as did the House — 20 Republican senators would have to join Democrats in convicting Trump and removing him from office.
The first article of impeachment passed by the House charges Trump with abuse of power.
Democrats allege Trump “solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 U.S. president election to his advantage.”
»Read the best lines from President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial
The “election prospects of a political opponent” refer to Biden, currently a front-runner in a narrowing field of Democratic White House hopefuls.
The president “also sought to pressure the government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official U.S. government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of investigations.”
Democrats argue the president “used the powers of his presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process. He thus ignored and injured the interests of the nation.”
