Trump’s lawyers ask to flush ‘flimsy’ case
WASHINGTON — In its first filing for impeachment trial, Trump’s legal defense team in legal brief has decried the “flimsy” charges as a “dangerous perversion of the Constitution,” accusing Democrats of a brazen attempt to overturn the 2016 election.
Trump’s high-profile lawyers, who include Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz and Clinton special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, asserted Monday he did “absolutely nothing wrong,” urging the Senate to swiftly reject the “flimsy” impeachment case against him as rigged, while the Capitol braced for a contentious trial.
The brief from Trump’s lawyers, filed as senators prepare to return to Washington for opening arguments, offers the most detailed look at the lines of defense they intend to use against Democratic efforts to convict the president and oust him from office for pressuring Ukraine to investigate alleged corruption involving Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. It is meant as a counter to a filing two days ago from House Democrats that summarized weeks of testimony from more than a dozen witnesses in laying out the impeachment case.
“All of this is a dangerous perversion of the Constitution
that the Senate should swiftly and roundly condemn,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “The articles should be rejected and the president should immediately be acquitted.”
The 110-page brief from the White House, plus a scheduled House Democratic response, come as final preparations were underway at the Capitol for the Senate trial. With the trial taking place in an election year, some of the Democratic senators vying to challenge Trump in the 2020 election are sitting as jurors.
The White House filing hinges on Trump’s assertion he did nothing wrong and his lawyers’ position that his acts don’t amount to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” required by the Constitution to oust a sitting president.
Senators are poised for only the third trial of its kind in U.S. history but first they must contend with a rules fight and whether to allow new witnesses. The White House legal team said Monday it supports whatever package Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell puts forward, including one that would give both sides 24 hours over just two days each to argue their case.
In their own filing Monday, House prosecutors replied, “President Trump asserts that his impeachment is a partisan ‘hoax.’ He is wrong.”
The House Democrats led by Chairman Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee said the president can’t have it both ways — rejecting the facts of the House case but also stonewalling congressional subpoenas for witnesses and testimony. “Senators must honor their own oaths by holding a fair trial with all relevant evidence,” they wrote.