The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House outlines impeachment case, and president answers
Arguments at trial in Senate begin in earnest Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s legal team issued a response ahead of opening arguments in his impeachment trial Saturday while House Democrats laid out their case in forceful fashion, saying the president had “abandoned his oath” and betrayed the public trust.
The dueling statements previewed arguments both sides intend to make once Trump’s impeachment trial begins in earnest Tuesday. Both sides are seeking to make their case for a Republican-led Senate and for an American public bracing for a presidential election in 10 months.
The House’s 111-page brief pulls together the private and public testimony of a dozen witnesses — ambassadors and national security officials — who raised concerns about the president’s actions with Ukraine. The House managers overseeing the prosecution wrote that the “‘evidence overwhelmingly establishes” that Trump is guilty of both charges. “The only remaining question is whether the members of the Senate will accept and carry out the responsibility placed on them by the Framers of our Constitution and their constitutional Oaths,” the brief states.
The Trump team, meanwhile, called the Senate’s formal impeachment summons to two articles of impeachment passed by the House last month “a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president.”
“This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months away,” the filing states.
“President Trump categorically and unequivocally denies each and every allegation in both articles of impeachment,” wrote Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, and Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal lawyer.
The president’s lawyers did not deny that he withheld $391 million in aid from Ukraine and asked the country’s president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. But they said Trump broke no laws and was acting within his powers when he did so, echoing the president’s repeated protestations of his own innocence. They argued that Trump was not seeking political advantage, but working to root out corruption in Ukraine.
Trump’s legal team is challenging the impeachment on both procedural and constitutional grounds. Trump was impeached by the House on one count each of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.