WHY DEMOCRATS CALLED ON TRUMP TO TESTIFY AT HIS TRIAL
The central strategic goal for Republicans at Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is no mystery. Above all, they must avoid taking a stand on what the former president is actually accused of doing: inciting a mob assault on the Capitol and on lawmakers themselves, for the express purpose of violently disrupting the peaceful conclusion of an election he lost.
Intriguingly, this task may have been badly complicated by none other than Trump’s own lawyers.
This may explain why Rep. Jamie B. Raskin, D-Maryland, the head of the team of impeachment managers, has sent a letter to Trump, asking him to testify in his defense at his Senate trial.
A spokesperson for Trump confirmed that Trump will not testify, which is hardly surprising. But this, too, underscores the complications that Trump’s lawyers have created for Republicans.
The letter to Trump notes that his lawyers recently filed an answer to the House’s impeachment brief, which spelled out the Democrats’ case for impeaching Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” The letter states:
“Two days ago, you filed an Answer in which you denied many factual allegations set forth in the article of impeachment. You have thus attempted to put critical facts at issue notwithstanding the clear and overwhelming evidence of your constitutional offense. In light of your disputing these factual allegations, I write to invite you to provide testimony under oath, either before or during the Senate impeachment trial, concerning your conduct on January 6, 2021.”
A Democrat who is a close observer of the House impeachment managers suggests to me that this request was rooted in a belief that in their response, Trump’s lawyers committed a serious blunder.
The blunder is that Trump’s lawyers did not keep their reply confined to the argument that convicting him in an impeachment proceeding would be unconstitutional, because he’s no longer in office. That argument is highly dubious, but focusing on it alone might at least keep the arguments confined to questions of constitutionality, which Republicans would like.
Instead, Trump’s lawyers contested numerous substantive claims made by the impeachment managers about Trump’s actual conduct. And the Democrat suggests to me that doing this opened the door to questioning Trump directly about that conduct.
Indeed, the substantive denials offered by Trump’s lawyers are strikingly weak, and they show how vulnerable his defenses are to cross-examination.
For instance, at one point, Trump’s lawyers claim that when he urged the mob to descend on the Capitol by saying, “if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he wasn’t actually directing mob action.
Instead, they claim rather implausibly, “this was clearly about the need to fight for election security in general.”
Obviously, if Trump agreed to testify, he could be asked why, if his only intention were to enlist the angry crowd in the pious cause of election security, he refused many entreaties to call off the mob as it rampaged for hours, including entreaties coming from terrified lawmakers under siege inside the Capitol.
Similarly, Trump’s lawyers denied that Trump “intended to interfere with the counting of Electoral votes.” And so, if Trump were to testify, he could be asked why he repeatedly and explicitly called on then-Vice President Mike Pence not to allow Congress to count them.
For instance, on the day before Congress was set to convene for that purpose, Trump tweeted, “The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.” The claim of fraud was a lie, but that aside, there’s no question that Trump did intend to derail the count.
What’s more, Trump repeatedly called on Pence to do this on the day of the insurrection itself, and not only that, he did so for the express purpose of whipping up the crowd that he then directed toward the Capitol.
There’s no escaping what really happened. Now, in one sense, Republicans are surely relieved Trump isn’t testifying, because he would no doubt reiterate that the election outcome was fraudulent, demonstrating again that he absolutely did want to overturn it, making Republicans look even more corrupt and depraved for acquitting him.
But nonetheless, because Trump’s lawyers decided to contest claims in a way that calls for the wholesale ignoring of reality, Republicans will still have to vote to acquit after a thorough demonstration that not only did Trump absolutely intend to overturn the election; he did so by directing a mob to violently assault the lawmakers who were bringing it to its conclusion.
That Trump won’t testify in his own defense will only further underscore how indefensible all this really is.