‘I don’t really care’ about a trial in US Senate

RNA - “I don’t really care. It doesn’t matter. As far as I’m concerned I’d be very happy with a trial because we did nothing wrong,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

The Republican president reiterated that he considered his impeachment by the Democratic-led House a hoax.

Trump and his Republican allies have attacked the impeachment effort as illegitimate.

In an impeachment probe, the House functions like a prosecutor’s office. If the chamber charges a president with committing impeachable offenses, a group of House members presents evidence of wrongdoing during a trial before the Senate, which acts as a jury in deciding whether the president should be removed from office.

Under the US Constitution, a two-thirds vote of the Senate is required to convict the president.

Trump on December 19 became the third US president to be impeached when the House voted to charge him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

In their articles of impeachment, Democrats allege that Trump abused his power as president by pressuring Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to help him win re-election.

At the heart of the impeachment case is testimony by current and former officials alleging that Trump pressured Ukraine to announce a corruption investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

Democrats also charge Trump with obstructing Congress by preventing members of his administration from cooperating with the impeachment probe, in defiance of the US Constitution.

Republican lawmakers have criticized the House’s impeachment investigation as a political exercise based on hearsay. They say witnesses like former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who testified at House hearings, never spoke directly to Trump and therefore lack credibility.

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