Trump impeachment: President 'brags' about obstructing Congress as Senate hears he used power to 'cheat' election
Trial begins with opening statements from House prosecutors summarising mountain of evidence from Congress
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Your support makes all the difference.House impeachment managers delivered opening remarks during the US Senate trial into Donald Trump and his dealings with Ukraine, as Democrats blasted White House attorneys for presenting Fox News-style “histrionics" at the hearings.
Democratic impeachment manager Adam Schiff argued in his opening remarks the president's "misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box" and suggested that Americans "cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won" in 2020 after Mr Trump encouraged Ukraine to launch political investigations into one of his Democratic rivals, Joe Biden.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, another impeachment manager, also accused Republicans of “voting for a cover-up”, observing: “Only guilty people hide the evidence.”
The prosecution's marathon opening statements included clips from witness testimonies and, most damning, from the president himself, including his admission that he would accept politically damaging information on a rival candidate from a foreign country and would ask China to investigate the Bidens.
House impeachment managers, acting as the prosecution, each handled a different aspect of the charges against the president and the players involved, from Rudy Giuliani's influence and direction under the president to pressure Ukraine into an investigation, to the on-the-ground consequences of withholding military aid to Ukraine while it was in the middle of a ground war with Russia.
Looking on from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the president fired out dozens of retweets in support of his cause while insisting he was “making great progress” at the global summit, as a new poll makes bleak reading for his supporters ahead of 2020.
The president appeared to acknowledge his administrations' participation in the obstruction charges against him by telling reporters: "Honestly, we have all the material. They don't have the material."
He also falsely claimed that Democrats leading his impeachment "don't talk about my conversation" with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenksky and that "they don't talk about my transcripts" that the president believes exonerate him.
Follow live coverage as it happened:
Donald Trump has seemingly tweeted a partial quote from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he claimed there was "no pressure" on him to announce political investigations:
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff continues to scorn Donald Trump: "The president believes that these corrupt acts are acceptable. A president this unapologetic, this lawless, this unbound to the Constitution and the oath of office must be removed from that office lest he continue ... to seek advantage in the next election."
If you feel like the House Intelligence chairman has been speaking for a long time, you're not alone. Adam Schiff, the lead Democratic impeachment manager, warned that he has just "ten minutes left" in his presentation, adding: "The end is in sight."
Mr Schiff also said just before: "If the president was fighting corruption, if he wanted Europeans to pay more, why would he hide it from us? Why would he hide it from Ukrainians? Why would he hide it from the rest of the world? ... Because, of course, it wasn't true."
House Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called for a nearly 20-minute recess after lead Democratic impeachment manager Adam Schiff concluded his opening remarks.
The US Senate has resumed its opening remarks in the impeachment trial against Donald Trump, with House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler delivering his statement.
Mr Nadler, a Democratic impeachment manager, begins by thanking senators for their "temperance listening and your patience."
He adds: "Truly, thank you."
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler begins by discussing Rudy GIuliani and his “henchmen”, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, noting how the two have been indicted for campaign finance violations that included donations to the president’s 2016 campaign.
Impeachment manager Sylvia Garcia is outlining Rudy Giuliani's attempts to arrange meetings with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.
"With [former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch] out of the way," the president instructed Ambassador Gordon Sondland and other officials "to satisfy Giuliani's concerns."
Garcia is outlining how Trump directed the delegation to talk to Rudy Giuliani for his Ukraine agenda, replaying testimony from Gordon Sondland, who said: "If we wanted to get anything done with Ukraine, it was apparent we had to talk to Rudy."
Garcia: "The three amigos, as they called themselves, did as they ordered and began talking to Giuliani."
She's now playing an interview with the president, in which he says that he would take foreign information on a political rival: "There's nothing wrong with listening."
Impeachment manager Jason Crow is up now, the last word from the prosecution team before the Senate takes a break.
He opens with a question: "Where were you on July 25, 2019?"
Crow tells the story of Ukrainian solider Oleksandr Markiv, who was killed in a trench while fighting Russians, two months after Trump froze US military aid earmarked for Ukraine.
The LA Times story about Markiv notes that "although there is no way to link Markiv’s or the dozens of other deaths directly to the lack of aid, military officials and other Ukrainians say they felt exposed, vulnerable and, at least temporarily, abandoned by their foremost ally: Washington."
Thousands of Ukrainians have been killed and millions others have been displaced in the conflict.
Jason Crow is invoking military realities to make the case that Donald Trump's decision to freeze aid without an agreement from Ukraine to investigate the son of his political rival in 2020 has dangerous, world-altering outcomes.
With 10 per cent of its military budget coming from the US, there is "no doubt that "US assistance to Ukraine makes a real difference in the fight against Russia."
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