Trump allies’ words used against him at trial
WASHINGTON • Democrats on Thursday pressed their case at U.S. President Donald Trump’s Senate trial for removing him from office by using the words of his own allies against him to make the point that his actions constituted impeachment offences, but his fellow Republicans showed no signs of turning against him.
The Democratic House lawmakers serving as prosecutors in the trial presented the second of their three days of opening arguments as they appealed to senators to convict him on two charges — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — passed by the House last month.
The U.S. Constitution sets out the impeachment process for removing a president who commits “high crimes and misdemeanours.” Trump’s legal team has argued that the House charges were invalid because impeachable offences must represent a specific violation of criminal law.
The charges against Trump arise from his request last year that Ukraine investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and the president’s actions to impede a House inquiry into the matter.
“Impeachment is not a punishment for crimes,” Democratic Representative Jerrold Nadler told the assembled senators. “Impeachment exists to address threats to the political system, applies only to political officials and responds not by imprisonment or fines but only by stripping political power.”
Nadler played a video clip of one of Trump’s most prominent defenders, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, arguing during the 1999 impeachment trial of then-president Bill Clinton that presidents could be impeached even if the conduct in question was not a statutory criminal violation.
Nadler also played a 1998 video clip of Alan Dershowitz, a member of Trump’s legal team, recognizing abuse of power as impeachable, and cited a memo written by Attorney General William Barr, a Trump appointee, that made the same point.
Trump’s legal team has stated that abuse of power is a “made-up theory” for an impeachable offence “that would permanently weaken the presidency by effectively permitting impeachments based merely on policy disagreements.”
Dershowitz said in the clip that abuse of power “certainly doesn’t have to be a crime. If you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of the president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don’t need a technical crime.”
Nadler said the Constitution “does not leave us stuck with presidents who abuse their power in unforeseen ways that threaten our security and democracy.”
Trump is almost certain to be acquitted by the 100-member Senate, which has 53 Republican members. A two-thirds majority is needed to remove him from office.