Impeachment trial: Trump repeatedly, flagrantly abused power, say Democrats

President Trump used the powers of his office to solicit a foreign nation to interfere in our elections for his own personal benefit: Democrats

International News: Democrats told President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial Thursday that he openly and dangerously abused his powers to gain political advantage. House impeachment managers laid out the evidence for the first of two articles of impeachment against the US leader in the second day of arguments, methodically dismantling Republican claims that Trump did nothing wrong in soliciting electoral help from Ukraine last year.

As the 100 senators sat as jurors, the prosecutors played old videos in which two of the president’s closest defenders said that abuse of power is a clear impeachable offense, puncturing a key White House argument that the US constitution requires a specific crime to remove a president.

“President Donald Trump used the powers of his office to solicit a foreign nation to interfere in our elections for his own personal benefit,” House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, one of the impeachment managers, told the chamber. “Since President George Washington took office in 1789, no president has abused his power in this way,” Nadler said. “The president has repeatedly, flagrantly, violated his oath… The president’s conduct is wrong. It is illegal. And it is dangerous.”