In the recent months, we had witnessed a tense clash between the two major political parties in the U.S over impeachment of the U.S. President Donald Trump, one party has the control of the Congress and the other one has majority in the Senate.

IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

Trump was impeached by the Congress on two articles of abuse of power and obstruction of the Congress.  The vote was 230 to 197 on the first of two articles of impeachment — abuse of power — with one member voting present. The House then passed the second article — obstruction of Congress — with a vote of 229 to 198, with one member voting present. The move triggered a trial for Trump in the Republican dominated Senate.

American news TV channel CNN on Wednesday and after voting in the Senate reported President Trump’s acquittal from both charges. The result of the voting means Trump will remain in power till the end of his term by end of 2020.

In the Wednesday session of the Senate for impeachment of Trump, all Republican Senators of the Senate but one Senator Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, opposed the impeachment of Trump but Democrat Senators unanimously voted for impeachment of the president. But ultimately, it was the Republicans who won the challenge with 52 votes against 48 on the first article of impeachment and reinstated Trump in the office.

Then the Senate voted on the second impeachment charge, obstruction of Congress, and Trump once again survived. But this time, Romney joined the Republicans and voted against this charge, which fell along straight party lines, 53-47 for acquittal. All 47 Democrat Republicans voted for impeachment of the President.

The groundwork for impeachment of Trump began in September when Speaker of the Congress Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry following an anonymous whistleblower complaint alleging Trump sought election help from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 2019 phone call. Trump had asked the Ukrainian President to start an investigation against his 2020 presidential election Democrat contender Joe Biden’s son financial corruption.

In his phone conversation with Zelensky, Trump had asked him to start prove over Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, for his allegedly economic corruption when he was a member of board of directors of Ukrainian  Burisma Gas Company. By this move, Trump wanted to use Hunter’s corruption to inflict a blow at Biden who is considered as his main Democrat contender in the upcoming election.

Trump’s misuse of power made the Democrats in the U.S. Congress take action to impeach him and they launched the process for impeaching the U.S. President regarding his two charges of abuse of power and obstruction of the Congress.

While the Democrats intended to summon former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, the Republicans who dominate the Senate resisted against Democrats’ move and ultimately, everything progressed in favor of Trump.

That in the U.S. two major political parties play key role in administering the country, in other words, if it is considered right, the country is administered by bipolarity, once by one party and once with the other one, it is the biggest violation of democracy.

Today democracy has lost major part of its credit because of the power of publicity and media deception which are run by money power, and people in those countries actually have turned their back towards this kind of democracy by not turning out in the election.

In recent Trump’s case, he was actually guilty for his profiteering acts in favor of his personal interests but his party, Republic Party, saved him from the fire who himself had kindled. In other words, the truth was sacrificed in favor of gain and expedience.

So this idea that group and party interests can hinder materialization of democracy cannot be called a “democracy”.

 By: Hamid Reza Naghashian

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Capitol Police said they arrested 41 demonstrators, charging most of them with crowding, obstructing or incommoding.

The demonstration involved groups such as Public Citizen, Women’s March, Center for Popular Democracy Action, Stand Up America, March for Truth, Demand Justice and the Poor People’s Campaign.

Protesters first met for a silent protest in the Hart Senate Building before moving to Capitol Building’s steps shouting for more witnesses in impeachment trial.

“The Republicans are rigging this trial and the one force that could actually change this equation is the power of the people coming out in the streets and demanding witnesses, demanding evidence and demanding conviction and removal,” said Rafael Kadaris, a protester with RefuseFacism.org.

Need to Impeach, another group that participated in the protest, delivered certificates and presented trophies to the offices of all Senate Republicans for their “participation in covering up” Trump’s actions.

“By not allowing witnesses and holding Trump accountable, they are breaking their oaths of office. They are betraying the American people and our constitution,” said Nathaly Arriola, the group’s executive director. “They are covering up for Donald Trump’s crimes. Voters will not forget this in the months ahead”, The Hill reported.

Similar protests were also planned for Wednesday in Anchorage, Alaska, Phoenix, Denver, Lexington, Ky., Portland, Maine, and Salt Lake City, organizers said.

The Senate is expected to vote Friday on whether to allow more witnesses and documents. If Republicans rebuff Democratic efforts to call witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton, the Senate will likely proceed to a vote to convict or acquit.

Senate Republicans have become increasingly confident they will avoid a messy floor fight over witnesses and vote to acquit Trump.

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TEHRAN (Iran News) – The stakes over witness testimony at US President Donald Trump impeachment trial rose after a draft of a book from former national security adviser John Bolton appeared to undercut a key defense argument.

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TEHRAN (Iran News) – Republicans and Democrats battled over summoning high-level White House witnesses Tuesday in a marathon first day of arguments in US President Donald Trump trial for abuse of power.

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Four months after the Ukraine scandal exploded and went on to overshadow the end of Trump’s term, and 10 months before Americans go to the polls to decide whether to re-elect him, the 100 members of the Senate will gather at 1 PM (1800 GMT) with chief justice John Roberts presiding over the trial.

The job of these lawmakers, sworn in last week as jurors, is to decide if Trump abused his office and obstructed Congress as charged in two articles of impeachment approved last month by the House of Representatives.

Part of the scandal centers on a July 25 telephone call in which Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump’s potential opponent in the November vote.

Democrats, who control the House of Representatives and led the investigation, accuse Trump of manipulating Ukraine by withholding nearly $400 million in military aid for its war against Russian-backed separatists and a White House meeting for Zelensky until the latter announced a Biden probe.

“President Trump abused the power of his office to solicit foreign interference in our elections for his own personal political gain, thereby jeopardizing our national security, the integrity of our elections, and our democracy,” the House managers said Saturday in a memorandum.

They said the president’s behavior “is the Framers’ worst nightmare,” referring to the authors of the US Constitution, and that Trump deserves to be removed from office.

But, as the impeachment trial comes closer, Trump looks more certain to be acquitted because of the 53-47 Republican majority in the Senate.

He will be abroad as his trial opens; Trump left late Monday for the economic forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The first order of business Tuesday will be to set the rules, such as how long they will hear the arguments of the House managers, or prosecutors, and whether they will call witnesses or seek other evidence.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell late Monday proposed rules calling for each side to have 24 hours over two days to present their arguments. The chamber will debate and vote on the proposed rules Tuesday.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said McConnell is rushing the trial and also making it harder for witnesses and documents to be presented.

The Democrats want key Trump administration officials to testify, such as former national security adviser John Bolton, in the belief that they know a lot about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. Bolton has said he is willing to testify if subpoenaed.

The White House has said it expects the trial to be over in two weeks.

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Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, lashed out at Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, his Republican counterpart, on Sunday night in a news conference, accusing him of planning to conduct an abbreviated, unfair trial.

“Whether it’s because McConnell knows the trial is a cover-up and wants to whip through it as quickly as possible, or because he’s afraid to even more evidence will come out, he’s trying to rush it through,” Schumer said. “That is wrong. And it is so wrong that no one even knows what his plan is a day and a half before one of the most momentous decisions any senator will ever make.”

McConnell has so far refused to reveal details about the resolution he will seek to pass on Tuesday setting up the rules of the trial. But Senator David Perdue, Republican of Georgia, said on Sunday that McConnell was considering a plan that would give each side 24 hours to present arguments on the floor of the Senate, but with the requirement that they do so over the course of two days.

“Twenty-four hours of presentation by the House managers over two days, then 24 hours of presentation by the president’s team over two days and then 16 hours of questions submitted by the members in writing to the chief justice,” Perdue said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding, “That’s our proposal.”

Democrats reacted with alarm to that idea on Sunday. One aide working on the impeachment trial noted that it was scheduled to start each day at 1 p.m. and said that forcing the House managers to deliver 12 hours of arguments in a single day could push the trial into the early hours of the next morning when few people would be watching.

In his news conference, Schumer said the president and his Republican allies were eager for a short trial because they did not want the president’s actions to be put on display for everyone to see.

“He’s afraid of what the American people might hear,” Schumer said of McConnell, The New York Times reported.

The House managers, who will serve as prosecutors in the trial, met for several hours on Sunday to strategize and refine their presentations, according to congressional aides working on the trial. Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and one of the managers, said Sunday that the Senate must seek testimony from additional witnesses.

“It’s not negotiable whether you have witnesses,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And this whole controversy about whether there should be witnesses is really a question of, does the Senate want to have a fair trial, or are they part of the cover-up of the president?”

But several Republican senators on Sunday dismissed the idea of calling additional witnesses, saying it was up to the House to conduct those interviews before approving the articles of impeachment and sending them to the Senate.

“If the House isn’t prepared to go forward with the evidence that they produced in the impeachment inquiry, maybe they ought to withdraw the articles of impeachment and start over again,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said on “Face the Nation,” adding that it was not the Senate’s responsibility to do work that the House failed to do before voting to impeach Trump.

“This, to me, seems to undermine or indicate that they’re getting cold feet or have a lack of confidence in what they’ve done so far,” he said.

Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, said his early assessment of the case against the president was that the House had not proved Trump was guilty of abuse of power or obstruction of Congress. He said senators should hear the arguments from both sides before making a decision on witnesses.

“If the case looks so flimsy, as some people say, if it’s nothing to it, it doesn’t rise to impeachable offenses, like a court of law, the court disposes of it,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Some Democrats have suggested that the Senate should hear from Lev Parnas, an associate of the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Parnas, who is under indictment on criminal campaign finance charges, was involved with Giuliani’s efforts to pressure Ukraine on Trump’s behalf and has provided texts, emails and other documents to House investigators.

Perdue dismissed Parnas, calling him a “distraction” and insisting that he had only secondhand information about the president’s actions.

“This is a person that’s been indicted right now. He’s out on bail,” Perdue said. “He’s been meeting with the House Intel Committee — if the House felt like this information was pertinent, I would think they would have included him in this, and his testimony in this.”

Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who is the lead manager in the impeachment trial, said the idea of refusing to call witnesses would be like a judge in a criminal case working with the defendant to make sure the prosecution could not call witnesses.

“No juror has ever heard that kind of thing from a judge because it would be absurd,” Schiff said on “This Week.” “It would be a mockery of a trial, not a trial, but that is what Senator McConnell to date is proposing.”

If the senators agree to seek the testimony of additional witnesses that would most likely extend the impeachment trial for at least several weeks. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the president’s closest Republican allies, said Trump was confident about the outcome of the trial but eager to have it over as quickly as possible — if possible before he delivers his State of the Union address, scheduled for Feb. 4.

“His mood is to go to the State of the Union with this behind him and talk about what he wants to do for the next — rest of 2020 and what he wants to do for the next four years,” Graham said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He is very much comfortable with the idea this is going to turn out well for him. He believes politically this has helped him.”

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TEHRAN (Iran News) – US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needled President Donald Trump in an interview Friday night saying ‘You are impeached forever’, noting that the stain of impeachment will always live on his presidency regardless of the outcome of the Senate trial.

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Senior Democrats said they would include phone records and other documents provided by Florida businessman Lev Parnas when they make their case that Trump abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate a political rival, Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden.

Parnas was an associate of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who says Parnas helped him investigate Biden. The Ukraine-born Parnas has pleaded not guilty to federal campaign-finance violations in a separate criminal case.

The late inclusion of Parnas’ records, which were only made available to investigators in the last few days, suggested Democrats were trying to further substantiate their case before it heads to the Senate for trial.

Trump became only the third US president to be impeached when the Democrat-majority House last month approved charges that he abused the powers of his office and obstructed Congress in its investigation into his conduct.

The House will vote on Wednesday to send the impeachment charges to the Republican-controlled Senate, kicking off a trial that could last through early February. It will also name the House lawmakers who will prosecute the case against Trump.

Those lawmakers will walk in a procession through the US Capitol to the Senate to present the articles of impeachment to the secretary of the Senate around 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT) on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office said in a statement.

The Senate is expected to acquit Trump, as none of its 53 Republicans have voiced support for ousting him, a step that would require a two-thirds majority in the 100-member chamber.

Pelosi had delayed sending the impeachment charges to the Senate in an unsuccessful effort to get Republicans who control the chamber to agree to include new witness testimony that could be damaging to the Republican president.

Republicans mocked Pelosi for the delay, saying it undercuts her argument that Congress needed to impeach Trump because he was inviting foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election.

Democrats said the delay allowed new evidence to emerge through government records requests – and now, the material provided by Parnas.

Democrats said Parnas’ phone included a screenshot of a previously undisclosed May 10, 2019, a letter from Giuliani to then-President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine.

“In my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent, I request a meeting with you,” Giuliani wrote, Reuters reported.

WITNESSES?

One of the most contentious issues that have yet to be resolved is whether to have witnesses in the Senate trial.

Democrats want to hear from current and former White House officials, such as former national security adviser John Bolton, whom they believe could provide insight into Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has resisted the idea of calling witnesses or digging up new evidence in the trial, saying his chamber should only consider evidence that has been collected by the House.

Wednesday’s House vote would allow the Senate to begin considering the charges against Trump next week, McConnell said. All the senators present will act as the jury at the trial, which will be overseen by the head of the US Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has dismissed his impeachment as a partisan bid to undo his 2016 election win as he tries to win re-election in November.

“It’s just to try and smear this president because they know they can’t beat him at the ballot box,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told Fox News.

The case against Trump is focused on a July 25 telephone call in which he asked Zelenskiy to open a corruption investigation into Biden and his son Hunter, as well as a discredited theory that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 US election.

Joe Biden, whose son served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, is a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination to face Trump in the Nov. 3 election. Both Bidens have rejected the allegations and no evidence has emerged to substantiate them.

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“I believe whoever the Democrat is next year is going to win by 4 to 5 million popular votes,” the Oscar Award documentary filmmaker and activist has told Democracy Now.

“The problem is… if the vote were today, I believe, he [Trump] would win the electoral states that he would need because living out there, I will tell you, his level of support has not gone down one inch.”

“In fact, I’d say it’s even more rabid than it was before because they’re afraid now. They’re afraid he could lose because they watched his behavior.”

“They are voracious in their appetite for Donald Trump,” Moore added, “that’s the bad news.”

In 2016, Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, secured the popular vote with a sizable lead of 2.8 million votes, tantamount to 2.1 percent of the total vote.

Nonetheless, Trump comfortably won the election by winning key states, thanks to the so-called Electoral College system.

The system overrides the popular vote, which gives the victory to the candidate winning the most ballots. It instead makes 538 electors across different states that are chosen based on each state’s representation in Congress, liable for electing the chief executive. Therefore, if a contestant secures at least 270 of the electoral votes, they have won the presidential race.

Opponents say the system counters the fundamentals of a democratic republic, calling for its abolition.

In his interview, Moore also warned Democrats against choosing a so-called moderate candidate like “Hillary Clinton,” saying they might lose again.

“If we go that route, it’s guaranteed we will lose the Electoral College. We will win when we put somebody on that ballot that excites the base – women, people of color, young people,” he said.

A new poll released last week showed Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had overtaken former Vice President Joe Biden in head to head matchup with Trump.

The survey, conducted between December 18 and 19 by Ipsos/Reuters, found that 39 percent of US vote favored Sanders over Trump, compared to 37 percent who preferred Biden over the Republican president who could win.

Moore has supported Sanders for the Democratic nomination but did say he would be satisfied with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as the candidate.

His remarks came as the House of Representative impeached Trump on December 18 over allegations that the president had abused his power by withholding $391 million in US security aid to Ukraine as leverage to pressure Kyiv to conduct an investigation that would benefit him politically.

And according to a new poll released last week, a majority of Americans approve of Trump impeachment.

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US President Donald Trump is not a role model for kids, says a GOP senator.

“I don’t think that President Trump as a person is a role model for a lot of young people and the kids,” said Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford on CBS’ “Face The Nation” that aired on Sunday. Iran News quotes the report.

“That’s just me personally… I don’t like the way that he tweets, some of the things that he says, his word choices at times are not my word choices. Trump comes across with more New York City swagger than I do from the Midwest and definitely not the way that I’m raising my kids,” he continued. “Saying that, there are policy areas that we agree on and when we agree on those things we work on those things together… But it’s also been a grand challenge to be able to say, for a person of faith, for a person who believes that there is a right way to go on things I- I wish that he did. And he was more of a role model in those areas.”

The lawmaker further praised the former reality TV star for his practice of “religious liberty” in the White House.

“Trump is focused on putting people around him that are very focused on religious liberty, not honoring a particular faith, but honoring any person of any faith to go be able to live and practice that faith and to have respect for that. That’s helpful for any person of faith,” Lankford claimed.

Trump recently became the third president in US history to be impeached and that over-pressuring Ukraine to gain an advantage over a political rival in 2020.

Despite the impeachment in the House, Trump will be acquitted in the GOP-majority Senate.

“No matter what we do, the president is going to say he did nothing wrong,” said Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy.

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