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TEHRAN (Iran News) – Closing out their case, House Democrats warned in Trump impeachment trial that the president will persist in abusing his power and endangering American democracy unless Congress intervenes to remove him before the 2020 election.

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“Trump wants to be all-powerful,” Nadler said. “He doesn’t want to have to respect the Congress, he does not have to respect the representatives of the will of the people.”

Democrats have accused Trump of abusing his power by using US resources in the form of military aid to Ukraine to pressure a foreign government to investigate business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden.

“Only his will goes,” Nadler added. “He is a dictator. This must not stand and that is another reason he must be removed from office,” The Hill reported.

Earlier this week Nadler struck a nerve with Senate Republicans after accusing the Republican members who voted against bringing in additional witnesses to the trial of being part of a “cover-up”.

After his comments, several Republican senators, including key moderates Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), said they were “offended” and “stunned” by Nadler’s comments.

Democrats have until Friday evening to make their case to Republican senators. Starting on Saturday, Trump’s legal defense team will begin presenting its case to the Senate.

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Democrats leader in Senate, Chuck Schumer and Senator Tim Kaine, the measure’s sponsor, said they had at least 51 votes for a joint resolution that would limit the power and require Trump to seek congressional authorization for military action against Iran, Reuters reported.

To become law, the measure must pass the House of Representatives and either be signed by Trump or garner a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress in order to override his veto.

Many members of Congress, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, have been pushing the administration for more information about the assassination this month of top Iranian commander Lt. General Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad’s airport.

Trump did not inform Congress about the strike until after it took place and then, according to many lawmakers, his administration kept back too much information about the reason for the strike or the legal justification.

Criticism grew as Trump and his top officials have offered shifting justifications for the drone strike. Trump himself fuelled controversy by saying on Twitter that “it doesn’t really matter” whether Gen. Soleimani posed an imminent threat.

Kaine said four Republicans – Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Susan Collins and Todd Young – had agreed to support the war powers resolution he introduced on Jan. 3.

In a statement, Collins said Kaine’s resolution would let Trump respond to aggression from a hostile nation or repel an attack. “It simply makes clear that only the Legislative Branch may declare war or commit our armed forces to a sustained military conflict with Iran,” she said.

Senate leaders are working out the timing of a Senate vote, likely next week, which is complicated by Trump’s Senate impeachment trial starting within days.

The House passed legislation known as a concurrent resolution last week, which called for an end to military action against Iran unless Trump obtained Congress’ approval.

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“An unstable President in way over his head, panicking, with all his experienced advisers having quit, and only the sycophantic amateurs remaining. Assassinating foreign leaders, announcing plans to bomb civilians. A nightmare,” Sen. Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in a tweet on Saturday.

It came after Trump warned Iran that a strike on “any Americans” or “American assets” in retaliation for the assassination of the IRGC Quds Force commander would result in the US targeting 52 sites — including “Iranian culture” sites.

But deliberately targeting cultural sites or cultural heritage sites could amount to a war crime under international law.

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also excoriated the president, tweeting, “This is a war crime. Threatening to target and kill innocent families, women and children — which is what you’re doing by targeting cultural sites — does not make you a ‘tough guy.’ It does not make you ‘strategic.’ It makes you a monster.”

General Soleimani, the deputy head of Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi, and a number of their entourage were killed in a strike by American drones near Baghdad International Airport in the early hours of Friday.

The White House and the Pentagon confirmed the assassination of General Soleimani in Iraq, saying the attack was carried out at the direction of Trump.

In a message on Friday morning, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei warned that harsh revenge awaits the criminals behind the martyrdom of General Soleimani.

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Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, is waiting until she receives more clarity from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, about what an impeachment trial will look like.

McConnell, however, says he wants to start the Senate trial as soon as lawmakers return from the holiday recess in January.

Democrats are also outraged over McConnell’s pledge to coordinate the trial with the Trump administration and do everything he can to acquit the president.

Impeachment begins in the House. If the lower chamber of Congress approves articles of impeachment, a vote is then held in the Senate. A two-thirds majority vote would be needed in the Senate to remove the president from office.

Trump became the third president in US history to go through impeachment, following the impeachments of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson. Neither Johnson nor Clinton were convicted by the Senate.

With Republicans in control of the Senate, Trump’s acquittal also seems likely.

In 1974, then-President Richard Nixon resigned during his second term after it became certain he would be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate over the Watergate scandal.

To formally launch a trial in the upper chamber of Congress, the 100-member Senate must pass a resolution with a simple majority authorizing the proceeding. But in order to do that, the House must first transmit the articles of impeachment.

Pelosi, however, says she will not deliver the documents until Democrats “know what sort of trial the Senate will conduct.” McConnell is refusing to agree to any of that in advance and cites the 1999 Clinton trial as a precedent.

In their dispute over how to move forward, both parties are citing the 1999 impeachment trial of Clinton, accusing each other of departing from what they view as precedents set by that trial.

Clinton’s trial in the Senate began on January 7, 1999, more than two weeks after he was impeached by the House on charges of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice with regard to a sex scandal investigation.

Trump is showing signs of increasing frustration with the uncertainty surrounding his Senate trial. He spent the Christmas holiday complaining and blasting Democrats over the impeachment.

The House approved two articles of impeachment against Trump on December 18 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

An impeachment probe was launched in September after an anonymous intelligence community whistleblower accused the president of pressing Ukraine’s president to investigate Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden, and Biden’s son, as well as a debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.

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A bipartisan Senate deal that could bolster Obamacare for two years by reviving federal subsidies for health insurers has been dismissed by Republicans.

The deal, which had been worked out by Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington, would restore $106 million in funding for a federal program that helps people enrolled in insurance plans.

Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee in the House, rejected the deal on Tuesday, saying, “Anything propping [Obamacare] up is only saving what Republicans promised to dismantle.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not indicate that he would bring the bill to the floor, and while Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) offered some praise, no Senate conservative showed strong public support for the compromise.

Senate Democrats, however, hailed the deal, calling on GOP leaders to quickly bring it to the floor.

They also praised “anti-sabotage” measures they said they had incorporated into the deal that would prevent President Donald Trump from taking Obamacare apart.

“The president had been sabotaging [Obamacare] and the agreement would undo much of that sabotage,” said Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (NY). “So overall we are very pleased with this agreement.”

The plan could protect Obamacare at least until the 2020 presidential campaign begins to heat up.

“This takes care of the next two years. After that, we can have a full-fledged debate on where we go long-term on healthcare,” Alexander said of the deal.

Murray and Alexander have been working on and off on the legislation for months. Murray is the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Alexander is the chairman of the committee.

Trump’s administration announced the end of the payments last week.

“As far as the subsidies are concerned, I don’t want to make the insurance companies rich,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They’re making a fortune by getting that kind of money.”

Health insurance experts have warned the move would financially harm middle-class customers, saying this decision was being made at the worst possible time.

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