The Democrats have been leading an official impeachment inquiry into President Trump for over a month now, finally deciding to make the process public last week. Next week, we would see the first hearings that are completely open to the public. Already several chief officials such as John Bolton, the previous national security advisor to the President, have refused to testify, which in itself paints the President in a negative light.
Nevertheless, more and more of the testimonies that the impeachment committee has been able to gather seem to agree that Donald Trump used US aid promised to Ukraine to negotiate potential dirt on his likely 2020 opponent, Joe Biden, in other words, he used his official position to defend his own personal interests. Some are even suggesting that Ukraine, not Russia, got Trump elected in 2016, despite President Putin joking on public television about hacking the 2020 elections too.
As of now, several people familiar with the hearings, have stated that the case against Trump is strong. There is the transcript of the call (though some parts of it have been redacted), written correspondence where officials familiar with the call expressed doubts before each other about the legality of its contents, and the testimonials from hearings.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have not come up with a unified defense of the President. Some of them refuse to read the transcript, others claim it says the opposite of what it does, and others still have tried to discredit the Democrat leaders personally.
It appears that the Democrats want to put Trump on trial before Christmas, so they can focus more on promoting their presidential candidate in 2020, rather than continuing the impeachment process. Still, the Republicans have the majority and may acquit the President.
