(Bloomberg) -- House Democrats used their full 24 hours in an effort this week to convince senators that President Donald Trump should be removed from office for abusing his power and obstructing Congress.Their arguments were meticulously planned and robustly sourced -- yet difficult to digest in sessions that began in the afternoon and lasted late into the night. The trial is all but certain to end in acquittal because 20 Republicans would have to join with all Democrats to reach the 67-vote threshold for conviction. That’s left Democrats making their case largely to voters ahead of the November election.Here are the main points that Democrats have argued in their presentation:More evidence is ‘yours for the asking’House Democrats repeatedly pleaded with senators that they should compel more witnesses to testify and subpoena more documents from the Trump administration.“There are documents that prove this,” Representative Adam Schiff, the lead House impeachment manager, said at various points. “They’re yours for the asking.”Much of the material was requested or subpoenaed during the House’s inquiry, and Trump’s blanket refusal to comply is the foundation of the impeachment article contending obstruction of Congress.On Tuesday, the Senate rejected amendments to the trial rules that would have forced the administration to hand over documents and allow officials to testify at the start of the proceedings.The Senate will have more chances later to vote on calling witnesses, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.Democrats would need at least four GOP senators to join them on those votes to reach a simple majority, and Republican Susan Collins of Maine has said she’s likely to vote in favor of seeking more evidence after both sides have presented arguments and senators ask questions.‘High crimes and misdemeanors’ need not be crimesDemocrats portrayed Trump as a dangerous president who abused the power of his office to advance his own political agenda, obstructed efforts by Congress to investigate his offenses and would do it all again if allowed to stay in the White House.House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler made the case that a president doesn’t need to commit a statutory crime to meet the constitutional standard for impeachment. He pointed out that the term “high crimes and misdemeanors” was taken from British common law on impeachment by the nations’ founders.Nadler played C-Span videos from the late 1990s of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and constitutional scholar Alan Dershowitz, now part of Trump’s defense team, saying that Congress didn’t need to prove that President Bill Clinton committed a crime to convict him. Nadler’s point was aimed at preempting a central argument from Trump defenders that the House never proved criminal wrongdoing.Nadler said the framers of the Constitution made it clear that impeachment can be warranted to respond to a broader range of misconduct -- especially abuse of power -- because there’s no way for lawmakers to anticipate and codify all the ways that a president could use the office for personal gain. He also emphasized the importance of removing a president to prevent further abuse.“Impeachment is not a punishment for crimes,” Nadler said. “Impeachment exists to address threats to the political system, applies only to political officials and responds not by imprisonment or fines, but only by stripping political power.”If Trump isn’t removed from office, Nadler said, the impeachment power will be unenforceable in the future. That would be “terrifying,” he said.Trump undermined U.S. national securityThe prosecution says Trump endangered U.S. national security in several ways.At the conclusion of an investigation into whether his 2016 presidential campaign conspired with Russian election meddling -- one that didn’t find direct evidence of wrongdoing -- the Democrats Trump say turned around and demanded Ukraine’s help with his re-election. That, they said, shows an embrace of foreign election interference that risks sending a signal to the Russians to try again.They also argued that the U.S.-Ukraine relationship is vital to the U.S., and at the center of that are efforts to rid Ukraine of corruption in its government and in key industries. Instead, prosecutors said, Trump sought to ensnare Ukraine’s new president, who campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, in a U.S. domestic political scheme that could taint the new leadership.During the House inquiry, witnesses including Bill Taylor, the former acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, testified about the importance of public U.S. support for Ukraine as it faces Russian aggression. Schiff said Trump’s decision to withhold the aid and a White House visit by Ukraine’s president risked signaling to Russia that the U.S. wouldn’t back Ukraine. And that could cause other allies to lose faith in the U.S.“This is how alliances wither and die and how Russia wins,” Schiff said.They denied wrongdoing by the Bidens in UkraineFormer Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter are at the center of the impeachment charges that Trump abused his power by trying to force Ukraine to announce politically motivated investigations. Democrats say Trump tried to improve his re-election prospects by tarnishing Biden, who’s seeking the Democratic nomination to run against Trump this year.Hunter Biden was on the board of a gas company in Ukraine while his father led the Obama administration’s dealings with that country. Some Republicans contend Joe Biden inappropriately pushed to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor to protect his son. But the House managers said that prosecutor was widely seen as corrupt and Biden was simply carrying out U.S. policy that was also backed by European allies. They also highlighted the testimony of U.S. diplomats that there was no basis for such claims.Representative Sylvia Garcia of Texas, one of the House impeachment managers, said Trump didn’t act on any concern about Ukraine until Biden’s potential candidacy became a threat.“President Trump didn’t care about any of this until 2019,” Garcia said. “But when Vice President Biden became the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and polls showed he had the largest head-to-head lead against President Trump, that became a problem.”Some Republicans such as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said the Democrats’ defense of the Bidens make it even more necessary that Hunter Biden testify in the impeachment trial. Some have suggested calling the Bidens to testify if Democrats succeed in getting for Trump administration witnesses like Bolton and Mulvaney that Democrats want to call. It would take a simple majority vote in the Senate to subpoena a witness.The ‘perfect’ call showed Trump was calling the shotsWhile Trump often tweets that a partial transcript the White House released showed his July 25 call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was “perfect,” Democrats cited testimony that aides on the call immediately reported to White House lawyers that the president was seeking an inappropriate political favor. The call record was then put in a special secure server that limited access.Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, another of the impeachment managers, said the call left no doubt that Trump -- not his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani -- led the effort to push for a probe of Biden and the Democrats.“After July 25, there can be no mistake the president of the United States was undoubtedly calling the shots,” said Jeffries.Trump will do it again unless he’s removedSchiff argued that Trump must be removed from office, because he can’t be trusted not to do it again. Schiff said Trump welcomed Russian interference in 2016, solicited Ukraine’s against Biden and has continued to do so, even calling for China to investigate the Bidens too.“None of us can have confidence based on his record that he will not do it again because he is telling us every day that he will,” Schiff said.Other Democrats hammered home the argument that Trump’s blanket obstruction of the impeachment inquiry is unique in American history -- worse than Nixon -- and said the Senate would empower future presidents to ignore Congress whenever they want if they don’t remove Trump.Schiff offered a preemptive response to Trump’s defense teamTrump’s team will get its chance to respond to all of this starting on Saturday, but Schiff offered his own preemptive rebuttal to the president’s defense case, including the claim made for weeks by his allies that the process is unfair because Republicans were locked out of it.That and many other claims are entirely false, Schiff said, pointing out that Republicans on three House committees were allowed to attend depositions with witnesses and had equal time to ask questions.Schiff said senators should expect Trump’s lawyers to use the opportunity to take shots at Biden and his son in advance of the 2020 election season.“If they couldn’t get Ukraine to smear the Bidens, they want to use this trial to do it instead,” Schiff said. “So let’s call Hunter Biden. Let’s smear the Bidens.”He also said the defense will almost certainly say Trump held the Ukraine aid because he had broader concerns about corruption there, which he said was refuted by extensive prosecution evidence.\--With assistance from Daniel Flatley and Erik Wasson.To contact the reporters on this story: Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net;Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net;Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk, Larry LiebertFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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