House Democrats continued making their case against Donald Trump by focusing on their claims he abused his legal powers, with one senior lawmaker saying the need for his removal is “at its peak.”

Several Democratic impeachment managers took turns heading their side’s second day of laying out their case as they tried to convince 20 Republican senators to vote with the chamber’s 47 Democrats to convict and remove the 45th commander in chief. They largely repeated evidence made public last year during televised hearings and voluminous reports that contend Mr Trump and some of his aides carried out a pressure campaign on Ukrainian leaders intended to help him win re-election.

One of the Democratic managers, California Rep Zoe Lofgren, told the senator jurors that the president himself “directed” the Ukraine push. He deserved to be impeached by the house and should be kicked out of the Oval Office by the Senate, she said, because he “harmed our national security” and “put our country at risk.”

What’s more, Ms Lofgren said Mr Trump did so “with corrupt intent.”

Ms Lofgren was the third House Democratic manager to speak on Thursday, following an hour-long speech from House Judiciary Committee chair Jerrold Nadler about the history of impeachments and how abuses of power have been used throughout US history.

All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Show all 6 1 /6 All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Alan Dershowitz Dershowitz is a controversial American lawyer best known for the high-profile clients he has successfully defended. Those clients have included OJ Simpson, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein. One longtime Harvard Law associated told the New Yorker Dershowitz "revels in taking positions that ultimately are not just controversial but pretty close to indefensible." Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Ken Starr Starr became a household name in the 1990s as the independent counsel who led the investigation that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment. That investigation began as a look into a real estate scandal known as Whitewater, and eventually led to impeachment after Mr Clinton lied under oath about having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. AP All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Jay Sekulow Sekulow is the president's longtime personal attorney, and, now, personal lawyer in the White House. He has been accused by former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas of being "in the loop" during the Ukraine scandal. Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Pam Bondi Bondi is the former attorney general in Florida, and a longtime backer of the president's. She made a name for herself in Florida for taking hyper partisan stances on issues, and her penchant for publicity. She is likely to be a prominent public-facing figure during the trial. AFP/Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Pat Cipollone Cipollone is the White House counsel, and leading the president's defence team. Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Rudy Giuliani While not officially named as one of the president's impeachment lawyers, it is hard to ignore Giuliani's outsized role in this process. The former mayor of New York has been making headlines for months as he defends his client, and for his apparent role in the effort to compel Ukraine to launch the investigation into Joe Biden. We'll see how he figures in the actual trial, which he has said he would like to be a part of. Reuters

Wearing a dark suit, bright white shirt and a necktie with red stripes, Mr Nadler often looked and sounded more like a law professor than a member of the House of Representatives.

At one point, he appeared to try making his presentation more digestible to anyone watching the live TV coverage. He spoke at length about “the ABCs of high crimes and misdemeanours,” which he defined as “abuse of power, betrayal of the nation through foreign entanglements, and corruption of elections”.

“The Framers believed that any one of these standing alone justified removal,” Mr Nadler said.

The meaty and detailed Democratic presentation was a continuation of their strategy to use all of their allotted time – 24 hours over three days – to lay out their case against Mr Trump. But it is not immediately clear that a country with an ever-shortening attention span is paying close attention to their marathon lectures.

Still, Mr Nadler made sure to drop a few lines that will likely be replayed during news reports.

“Abuse of power is clearly an impeachable offence under the constitution. I find it amazing the president rejects it,” he said at one point.

A few minutes later, Mr Nadler said of the president: “He must not remain in power one moment longer.”

He also accused Mr Trump of “violence to the constitution” that amount to “great and dangerous offences against the nation.”

“There is strong evidence he will do so again, and told us he will do so again,” Mr Nadler said, referring to the president on the White House’s South Lawn imploring Chinese officials to launch an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president Joe Biden, into his business dealings there.

Pushing back on GOP senators’ claims that the president did nothing wrong or does not deserve to be removed, Mr Nadler offered this: “The case for removal is at its peak.”

It fell to Mr Trump’s fellow New Yorker to begin making Democrats’ case that Mr Trump abused the power of the office of the president by saying he “placed his own personal political interests first”.

Pivoting off Mr Trump’s “America first” governing philosophy, he said the president’s actions toward Ukraine were “Donald Trump first”. “The president’s conduct was wrong,” Mr Nadler said. “No president has ever used his offer to compel a foreign nation to cheat in ... an election.”

As the trial resumed, the president openly mocked House Democrats, saying they oppose trading one of their desired witnesses for a White House-preferred one.

“Shifty Schiff, the Biden’s, the fake Whistleblower (& his lawyer), the second Whistleblower (who vanished after I released the Transcripts), the so-called ‘informer’, & many other Democrat disasters, would be a BIG problem for them!” he tweeted, using his derisive nickname for the intelligence chairman and referring to an individual who reportedly spoke to the intelligence officer whose complaint prompted the impeachment process.

But Mr Trump passed on an opportunity to field reporters’ questions as he departed the White House for a Republican Party event in Florida, only waving to the White House press corps as he headed for Marine One.

Though the president said on Wednesday that allowing current and former White House and administration officials to testify would create a “national security problem”, the country’s chief diplomat on Thursday said he might.

“I’ve said all along that if legally required to testify, I’d do that,” secretary of state Mike Pompeo told a Miami radio station. “President Trump has always made clear to everyone on his team that we’ll always comply with every legal requirement.”

With any new testimony inside the ornate Senate chamber almost certainly out of the question – no GOP senator joined Democrats in voting for the minority’s early trial motions for just that – Mr Pompeo uttered an administration talking point that the proceeding should come to a quick conclusion.