A6
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Friday, January 17, 2020
Trump’s trial begins, senators vowing ‘impartial justice’
By LISA MASCARO
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
U.S. Senate opened the
impeachment trial of Pres-
ident Donald Trump with
quiet ceremony Thursday,
senators standing at their
desks to swear an oath of
“impartial justice” as jurors
on the president’s fate. House
prosecutors recited the
charges, and Chief Justice
John Roberts presided in his
black Supreme Court robe.
The trial, only the third
such undertaking in Amer-
ican history, is unfolding at
the start of the election year,
a time of deep political divi-
sion in the nation. Four of the
senators sitting in judgment
on Trump are running for
the Democratic Party’s nom-
ination to challenge him in
the fall.
“Hear ye, hear ye, hear
ye!” intoned the Senate’s
sergeant at arms, calling the
proceedings to order at noon.
Senators fi lled the cham-
ber, an unusual sight in
itself, sitting silently under
strict rules that prohibit
talking or cellphones, for a
trial that will test not only
Trump’s presidency but also
the nation’s three branches
of power and its system of
checks and balances.
The Constitution man-
dates the chief justice serve
as the presiding offi cer, and
Roberts made the short trip
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff , D-Calif., front left, and House Judicia-
ry Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and other House impeachment manag-
ers walk to the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday.
across the street from the
Supreme Court to the Cap-
itol. He has long insisted
judges are not politicians
and is expected to serve as
a referee for the proceed-
ings rather than an active
participant.
“Will all senators now
stand, and remain standing,
and raise their right hand,”
Roberts said.
“Do you solemnly swear
that in all things apper-
taining to the trial of the
impeachment of Donald
John Trump, president of the
United States, now pending,
you will do impartial justice
according to the Constitution
and laws, so help you God?”
The senators responded
they would, and then they
lined up to sign an oath book.
Trump faces two charges
after the House voted to
impeach him last month.
One, that he abused his pres-
idential power by pressuring
Ukraine to investigate Dem-
ocratic rival Joe Biden, using
military aid to the country
as leverage. Trump is also
charged with obstructing
Congress’ ensuing probe.
The president insists he
did nothing wrong, and he
dismissed the trial anew
on Thursday at the White
House: “It’s totally partisan.
It’s a hoax.”
Eventual acquittal is
expected in the Republi-
can-controlled Senate. How-
ever, new revelations are
mounting about Trump’s
actions toward Ukraine.
The
Government
Accountability Offi ce said
Thursday that the White
House violated federal law
in withholding the secu-
rity assistance to Ukraine,
which shares a border with
hostile Russia.
At the same time,
an indicted associate of
Trump’s personal lawyer
Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas,
has turned over to prosecu-
tors new documents linking
the president to the shadow
foreign policy being run by
Giuliani.
The
developments
applied fresh pressure to sen-
ators to call more witnesses
for the trial, a main bone of
contention that is still to be
resolved. The White House
has instructed offi cials not to
comply with subpoenas from
Congress requesting wit-
nesses or other information.
“What is the president
hiding? What is he afraid
of?’’ asked Senate Demo-
cratic leader Chuck Schumer.
“The gravity of these
charges is self-evident,” he
said. “The House of Repre-
sentatives have accused the
president of trying to shake
down a foreign leader for
personal gain.”
House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi said of the new infor-
mation from Parnas: “This
is an example of all of the
president’s henchmen, and
I hope that the senators do
not become part of the presi-
dent’s henchmen.”
Before the swearing-in
ceremony, House Demo-
crats prosecuting the case
stood before the Senate and
formally read the articles
of impeachment.
Seven lawmakers, led
by Rep. Adam Schiff of the
Intelligence Committee and
Rep. Jerrold Nadler of the
Judiciary Committee, made
the solemn walk across the
Capitol for a second day.
All eyes were on Schiff
as he stood at a lectern in the
well of the chamber, a space
usually reserved for senators.
“House
Resolution
755 Impeaching Donald
John Trump, president of
the united States, for high
crimes and misdemeanors,”
he began, reading the nine
pages.
The other House prose-
cutors stood in a row to his
side.
Republican House Major-
ity Leader Mitch McConnell
took a far different view of
the charges and proceedings.
He opened the chamber
decrying Pelosi’s decision to
hand out “souvenir pens” on
Wednesday after she signed
the resolution to transmit the
charges to the Senate.
“This fi nal display neatly
distilled the House’s entire
partisan process into one
perfect visual,” McConnell
said. “‘It was a transparently
partisan process from begin-
ning to end.”
GOP Sen. James Inhofe
was absent, home in Okla-
homa for a family medi-
cal issue, his offi ce said. He
plans to take the oath as he
returns when the full trial
begins next week.
Two U.S. agencies say the 2010s was hottest decade ever measured on Earth
By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON — The
decade that just ended was
by far the hottest ever mea-
sured on Earth, capped
off by the second-warmest
year on record, two U.S.
agencies reported Wednes-
day. And scientists said
they see no end to the way
man-made climate change
keeps shattering records.
“This is real. This is hap-
pening,” Gavin Schmidt,
director of NASA’s God-
dard Institute for Space
Studies, said at the close of
a decade plagued by rag-
ing wildfi res, melting ice
and extreme weather that
researchers have repeatedly
tied to human activity.
The 2010s averaged 58.4
degrees Fahrenheit world-
wide, or 1.4 degrees higher
than the 20th century aver-
age and more than one-third
of a degree warmer than the
previous decade, which had
been the hottest on record,
according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
The decade had eight
of the 10 hottest years on
record. The only other
years in the top 10 were
2005 and 1998.
NASA and NOAA
also calculated that 2019
was the second-hottest
year in the 140 years of
record-keeping. Five other
global teams of monitoring
scientists agreed, based on
temperature readings taken
on Earth’s surface, while
various
satellite-based
measurements said it was
anywhere from the hot-
test year on record to the
third-hottest.
Several scientists said
the coming years will be
even hotter, knocking these
years out of the record
books.
“If you think you’ve
heard this story before,
you haven’t seen anything
yet. This is going to be part
of what we see every year
until we stabilize green-
house gases” from the
burning of coal, oil and
gas, said Schmidt, who was
at the American Meteoro-
logical Society convention
in Boston, where last week-
end it was so warm he went
jogging in shorts and a
T-shirt. Boston had its hot-
test January day on Sun-
day, at 74 degrees, which is
2 degrees warmer than the
old record.
“It’s sobering to think
that we might be breaking
global temperature records
in quick succession,” said
Georgia Tech climate sci-
entist Kim Cobb. “2020 is
off to a horrifying climate
start, and I fear what the
rest of the year will bring to
our doorsteps.”
Worship Community
NASA’s Schmidt said
that overall, Earth is now
nearly 2.2 degrees Fahren-
heit hotter since the begin-
ning of the industrial age,
a number that is important
because in 2015 global lead-
ers adopted a goal of pre-
venting 2.7 degrees Fahr-
enheit of warming since the
rise of big industry in the
mid- to late 1800s. He said
that shows the global goal
can’t be achieved. (NOAA
and the World Meteorolog-
ical Organization put the
warming since the dawn of
industry slightly lower.)
“We
have
strong
human-induced
global
warming,” said Friederike
Otto, a climate scientist at
the University of Oxford.
“What we observe here is
exactly what our physical
understanding tells us to
expect and there is no other
explanation.”
Other explanations that
rely on natural causes —
extra heat from the sun,
more refl ection of sunlight
because of volcanic par-
ticles in atmosphere, and
just random climate varia-
tions — “are all much too
small to explain the long-
term trend,” Princeton Uni-
versity climate scientist
Michael Oppenheimer said.
Scientists
said
the
decade-long data is more
telling than the year-to-
year measurements, where
natural variations like El
Nino, the periodic warming
of the Pacifi c Ocean, come
into play.
“Human-caused climate
change is responsible for
the long-term warming —
it’s responsible for why the
2010s were warmer than
2000s, which were warmer
than the 1990s, etc.,” Texas
A&M University climate
scientist Andrew Dessler
said in an email. “But
humans are not responsible
for why 2016 was warmer
than 2015 or why 2019 was
warmer than 2018.”
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241 SE Second St. Pendleton
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501 SW Emigrant Ave. Pendleton OR
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To share your worship
times call 541-278-2678
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Office Ph: 276-5358
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Pendleton
140 SW 2nd St Hermiston, OR 97838
Pastor Sharon Miller
-Presbyterian Church (USA)-
201 SW Dorion Ave.
Pendleton
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Solid Rock
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FIRST PRESBYTERIAN
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922-3250
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420 Locust St. • Boardman, OR
541-481-6132
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