Trump lawyers: ‘Political theater’
Bipartisan agreement reached — fast proceeding begins today with up to four hours of debate
Donald Trump’s lawyers Monday denounced the impeachment case against him as partisan “political theater,” arguing on the eve of the Senate’s trial that he bore no responsibility for the deadly assault on the Capitol and that trying a former president at all was unconstitutional.
In a 78-page brief submitted to the Senate, the lawyers asserted that Trump’s speech just before the attack “did not direct anyone to commit unlawful actions” and that he deserved no blame for the conduct of a “small group of criminals” who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6 after he had urged them to “fight like hell” against his election loss. They also insisted that the Senate “lacks jurisdiction” to try him at all because he was now a private citizen, calling such an effort “patently ridiculous.”
The arguments constituted Trump’s first sustained defense since the violence of Jan. 6. They concluded with the lawyers urging senators to promptly dismiss the single, bipartisan “incitement of insurrection” charge when the trial convenes today.
“This impeachment proceeding was never about seeking justice,” wrote the lawyers, Bruce Castor, David Schoen and Michael van der Veen. “Instead, this was only ever a selfish attempt by Democratic leadership in the House to prey upon the feelings of horror and confusion that fell upon all Americans across the entire political spectrum upon seeing the destruction at the
Capitol on Jan. 6 by a few hundred people.”
The defense’s road map arrived as the rules and timeline for the trial came into sharper focus Monday. Top Senate leaders reached a bipartisan agreement for an exceedingly swift proceeding that would begin today with up to four hours of debate followed by a vote on the constitutionality questions.
Because Trump is the first ex-president ever to be subject to an impeachment trial, the constitutionality question has loomed over the proceedings. Republicans, in particular, have embraced it to justify a speedy acquittal.
Legal scholars, including prominent conservatives, argue that the founders never intended to exempt someone like Trump from trial — a president who
was impeached while in office but left before senators could judge him. They note that the Senate voted in the 19th century to try a former war secretary and can do so now for a president who is no longer in office.
The House impeachment managers echoed that argument in their own five-page memo filed Monday rebutting Trump’s effort to dismiss the charge.
“Presidents swear a sacred oath that binds them from their first day in office through their very last,” they wrote. “There is no ‘January Exception’ to the Constitution that allows presidents to abuse power in their final days without accountability.”
They were just as blunt about Trump’s more substantive defenses: “To call these responses implausible would be an act of charity,”
they wrote.
Neither party has much interest in allowing a proceeding, the second impeachment trial of Trump in just over a year, drag on. Republican leaders worry that days of intense focus on the former president’s mendacious campaign to overturn his election loss could further cleave their party.
And for Democrats now in control of Congress and the White House, the proceeding threatens to complicate President Joe Biden’s attempts to quickly pass a nearly $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill.
If a simple majority of senators agree to move forward after today’s debate, as expected, the prosecution and defense would have up to 16 hours each to present their cases starting at noon Wednesday.
Here is a broad overview
of how the trial will unfold under the rules being discussed.
Today: Four hours of debate, then a procedural vote.
The first public clash between the president’s legal team and the impeachment managers will be over the question of whether the trial is legitimate under the Constitution.
Senators are planning to allow up to four hours of debate between the managers and defense team on the question that has loomed over the proceedings — whether a former president can be tried by the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors. No former president has ever been, but the Senate did try a war secretary in the 1870s after he left office.
If a simple majority of senators agree to move forward, as expected, the main part of the trial begins.
Wednesday to Friday or Sunday: 16 hours of oral arguments per side.
The prosecution and defense each have up to 16 hours to present their cases, likely starting at noon Wednesday under the terms of the deal being discussed by Sens. Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Neither side is expected to take the fully allotted time. But because one of Trump’s lawyers requested that the trial pause Friday at sundown for the Jewish Sabbath, which ends at sundown Saturday, it is unclear if the presentations will be completed before or on Sunday.
Sunday to early the following week: Senators’ questions, a possible debate over witnesses and possibly a verdict.