USA TODAY International Edition
Trump’s team: Justice demands an acquittal
Starting today, senator- jurors query both sides
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s defense team rested its case after two hours Tuesday, arguing that the charges against him do not warrant impeachment, much less his removal from office, and that “lowering the bar” would present a danger to the country.
“These articles must be rejected,” said Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s private attorneys. “The Constitution requires it. Justice demands it.”
Sekulow argued that the impeachment was based on policy differences between Democrats in Congress and the Republican administration, rather than crimes that required Trump’s removal from office.
“If that becomes the new norm, future presidents – Democrats and Republicans – will be paralyzed the moment they are elected,” Sekulow said. “The bar for impeachment cannot be set this low.”
He repeated a phrase as a warning to senators: “Danger, danger, danger.”
Trump’s lawyers began the day with 15 hours and 33 minutes of their allotted 24 hours remaining. Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out that they would not be able to use all of it by the end of the day. White House defense lawyer Pat Cipollone assured him that wouldn’t be a problem and promised to finish “by dinnertime and well before.”
The team wrapped up around 3 p. m., leaving nearly 13 hours on the clock.
The trial moves to its next phase, 16 hours of questions from the senators, beginning at 1 p. m. Wednesday. Under strict procedural rules adopted last week on the trial’s first day, senators are prohibited from speaking and will pass their written questions to Roberts.
“These articles must be rejected. The Constitution requires it.”
Trump attorney Jay Sekulow
After that phase, senators will debate whether to call witnesses, a scenario that became more likely Wednesday after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., said he didn’t think he had the votes to prevent it.
One of the key potential witnesses Democrats want to hear directly from is Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, who, according to The New York Times, alleges in a forthcoming book that Trump told him directly that he wished to withhold nearly $ 400 million in military aid for Ukraine unless it announced investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Republicans have countered Trump had ample rationale to hold up the aid until Ukraine took steps to clean up endemic corruption.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S. C., a staunch Trump supporter, said that if Democrats try to bring Bolton as a witness, they should be prepared to see the Bidens and other Democrats hauled in as well.
“I’m just telling everybody who thinks you can surgically deal with this: It’s not going to happen,” he said.
House Democrats have charged Trump with abuse of power for pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rival while withholding military aid. They also charged him with obstruction of Congress for refusing to turn over documents or make administration officials available for testimony.
Impeachable offenses need not be based on criminal statutes, although House Democrats said the abuse of power was based on action akin to bribery or extortion.
Patrick Philbin, deputy White House counsel, said impeachable offenses should be well- defined. The framers of the Constitution would have rejected the articles against Trump as too vague to be enforced, he said.
“Vague standards are themselves an opportunity for the expansion of power,” Philbin said.
Cipollone closed the defense with a warning that lowering the bar for impeachment and removal from office would set a precedent that would leave presidents vulnerable to a Congress led by a different party.
To support his point, he played a series of videos from Democrats decrying the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, who was tried but not removed from office in 1998. Two of the lawmakers – Reps. Jerry Nadler of New York and Zoe Lofgren of California – are managers prosecuting Trump’s case. Three others – Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Charles Schumer of New York and Bob Menendez of New Jersey – are senators sitting in judgment of Trump.
In one video, Nadler warned against an impeachment of Clinton supported by one party. No Republicans have supported Trump’s impeachment.
“Such an impeachment will produce the divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come, and it will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions,” Nadler said.
Lofgren said then that removing Clinton would undo the 1996 election.
“Future presidents will face election, then litigation, then impeachment,” Lofgren said in the video. “The power of the president will diminish in the face of the Congress, a phenomenon much feared by the Founding Fathers.”
Markey suggested at the time that Republicans pursued a constitutional coup against Clinton. Menendez warned against making impeachment a political weapon. Schumer feared that lowering the bar for impeachment would make it “a routine tool to fight battles” between Congress and the White House.
Republicans have made all of those arguments in defense of Trump.
“You were right,” Cipollone said to laughter in the Senate chamber. “But I’m sorry to say, you were also prophetic.”
After speaking, Cipollone walked over to the House managers’ table and shook hands with Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, the lead manager, and Nadler, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman walked over to the defense table and shook hands with lawyers at the table, and Democratic counsel Barry Berke embraced Sekulow.