The vote to find the US President guilty or not guilty will take place on February 5.
Although the US Senate can justify President Trump, Democrats called him a man without moral guidelines, who needs to be removed from office to protect American democracy.
Congressman Adam Schiff summed up the closing arguments of seven House impeachment managers after Trump’s lawyers called the case against the Republican President politically motivated, reckless and unfounded.
“We proved that Donald Trump is guilty. Now do impartial justice and condemn him,” Schiff told the senators. “He betrayed our national security, and he will do it again. He jeopardized our election, and he will do it again. You won’t change it. You can’t hold it back,” Schiff said.
“If you find the courage to confront him, to answer with the truth to his lies, your place will be among the Davids who fought Goliath-if only you say,” Enough is enough.”
The impeachment hearings came to a close a day before Trump is scheduled to deliver his annual State of the Union address. In Iowa, voters will participate in primaries that will also be held in other States, which will result in the nomination of a Democratic candidate to challenge Trump in the November 3 election.
On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled Senate is set to vote to remove Trump from the presidency. It seems that for now, the upper house of Congress will acquit the American President. This became clear after Senator Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican, said on Monday night that she would not vote to find Trump guilty even though his actions are “shameful and wrong.”
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin also said that he has not decided whether to vote to exonerate Trump and that he sees “no path” to getting the two-thirds vote needed to remove the President from office. Manchin predicted that a bipartisan majority in the Senate would vote to condemn Trump for his actions.
None of the 53 Senate Republicans called for condemnation of the President’s actions.
Trump called the impeachment a coup attempt by Democrats.
Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, urged senators to “stand firm.”
“This was the first completely one-party impeachment of a President in the history of our country. And it should be the last one,” Sekulow said. “What the House Democrats have done to this nation, to the Constitution, to the President’s office, to the President himself, and this body (the Senate) is outrageous.”
Schiff said America’s founders intended to use impeachment-the power granted to Congress under the US Constitution to remove a President from power for committing “serious crimes and misdemeanors” – a tool that will rarely be used.
Schiff said impeachment should be used to oust a President who would “sell his country for a political service,” undermine the integrity of elections and encourage foreign interference in American affairs.
