WASHINGTON — Less than 12 hours after a long, acrimonious debate in the Senate, the chamber’s chaplain offered some timely counsel during his prayer to open the third day of the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
“Help them remember that patriots reside on both sides of the aisle, that words have consequences, that how something is said can be as important as what is said,” Chaplain Barry Black said. “Give them a civility built upon integrity that brings consistency in their beliefs and actions.”
Among the 100 senators listening to the invocation was Utah Republican Mike Lee who said earlier he was insulted by House Democrat managers’ accusation that he and his GOP colleagues were involved in a cover-up. “I don’t take it personally, but I found it insulting to the body and to Republican senators,” he said.
The verbal sparring between the legal teams most likely won’t be an issue for the next two days as just one side — House impeachment managers — will have the stage for opening arguments in the third presidential impeachment trial in American history.
“Over the coming days, you will hear remarkably consistent evidence of President Trump’s corrupt scheme and cover-up,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. said, standing at a lectern in the well of the Senate on Wednesday. “You will appreciate there is no serious dispute about the facts underlying the president’s conduct. And this is why you will hear the president’s lawyers make the astounding claim that you cannot impeach a president for abusing the powers of his office because they can’t seriously contest that that is exactly, exactly what he did.”
Schiff and other House managers on the eight-member prosecution team methodically marched through their rationale for approving two articles of impeachment charging the president with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The managers invoked the words of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Paine, while using video clips and images of text messages to make their case that Trump put American security and democracy at risk for allegedly leveraging $391 million in aid and a coveted Oval Office meeting to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Trump’s political rival Joe Biden. Managers also accused Trump of an “unprecedented” effort to obstruct a congressional investigation into his dealings with Ukraine.
The managers took turns giving a sometimes chronological telling of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani running a shadow foreign policy effort designed to convince Ukraine to investigate why Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, received a lucrative position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma when his father was vice president.
Using clips of testimony given before the House Intelligence Committee, the managers showed how the “scheme” escalated into a smear campaign of a U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and then an effort to withhold military aid to Ukraine in order to get the newly elected Zelenskiy to investigate Biden, a potential Democratic presidential opponent in the 2020 election.
The alleged plan became public after a whistleblower filed a complaint about a July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy, during which Trump asked his counterpart as “a favor” to investigate Biden and alleged meddling by Ukraine in the 2016 election.
The White House released a transcript of the call the day after the Democratic-controlled House launched its impeachment inquiry. Trump has steadfastly maintained that the call was “perfect” and didn’t break any laws.
But Schiff said Trump’s defense team doesn’t want House investigators or senators to look “past the four corners of the transcript” and has defied every request for documents and witness testimony.
“Such a wholesale obstruction of congressional impeachment has never occurred in our democracy,” Schiff said. “And it represents one of the most blatant efforts of a coverup in our history.”
He explained that Trump’s alleged attempts to invite foreign influence in the upcoming 2020 election led House investigators to rule out the possibility of going through the lengthy process of forcing compliance through the courts.
“Given the seriousness of the conduct at issue and its persistence, this issue cannot and must not be decided by the courts, which are given no role in impeachments,” Schiff said. “Being drawn into litigation taking many months or years will provide the president with an opportunity to continue his misconduct ... rendering impeachment power effectively meaningless.”
As senators sat at their desks piled with binders and papers, and the glass of water they are allowed to have under Senate rules, they quietly listened, jotted down notes and occasionally stood to stretch.
Lee has received some media attention for his prodigious scribbling in a bound notebook Tuesday. He told Fox News that among the items he’s tracked is how many times House managers mispronounced the name of White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
But in an interview with the Deseret News, he said he’s filled countless pages of his notebook so far with details that stand out to him that he will later compare with the official congressional record.
“I do not have beautiful penmanship. But I do like to think that I have the ability to capture what’s happening that I regard is significant,” he said. “My hand was hurting by the end of the day.”
While Lee has worked with White House counsel in preparing its case before the Senate and doesn’t believe Trump has committed an impeachable offense, he will be listening to House managers for any disputed facts that additional witnesses could clear up.
“Even if you accept the allegation as they have been presented, even if you accept what the other witnesses have said John Bolton would say, even that testimony isn’t enough to make a difference as to whether or not this is an impeachable offense,” he said.
House managers disagree and forced the issue Tuesday in a marathon session where the GOP-controlled Senate rejected multiple attempts to amend the rules of the impeachment trial to subpoena documents and witnesses, including former national security adviser Bolton, before the opening arguments. That decision will now come after opening arguments and senators have a chance to question attorneys.
Lee also had some advice for House managers that aligned with Black’s invocation.
“One thing you do not want to do as a lawyer is insult your audience,” he said. “What I would have thought they would have wanted to do is appeal to as many Republican senators as possible and to make arguments that might resonate with them. Instead, they chose to insult Republican senators.”
In the last hour of Tuesday’s marathon session, House manager and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. was admonished by Chief Justice John Roberts to be more civil in addressing the Senate.
Before beginning his remarks Wednesday, Nadler thanked Roberts and senators for “your temperate listening and patience last night as we went into the long hours,” the Washington Post reported.
Then he deadpanned: “Truly. Thank you.”