Jury would convict Trump ‘in 3 minutes flat,’ says key lawmaker

The chairman of the US House Judiciary Committee says Sunday that if the impeachment case against US President Donald Trump were put to a jury, there “would be a guilty verdict in three minutes flat.”

Representative Jerry Nadler, whose panel will begin drawing up articles of impeachment this week, tells CNN that the evidence that Trump put personal interests above those of his country in dealing with Ukraine is “rock solid.”

He did not rule out the possibility of a House vote on impeaching Trump by the end of the week.

That would put it on a fast track to a trial before the Republican-controlled Senate, where Trump is expected to prevail.

Nadler’s committee will meet Monday to begin weighing evidence compiled by the House Intelligence Committee on whether Trump linked military aid and a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky to a request that Kyiv investigate a potential 2020 rival, Democrat Joe Biden, and his son Hunter.

Nadler would not speculate on what might be included in the articles of impeachment.

But he describes the central allegation as being that Trump “sought foreign interference in our elections several times, both for 2016 and 2020, and that he sought to cover it up” thus posing “a real and present danger to the integrity of the election” coming in November.

— AFP