Trump’s idea of executive power is also impeachment defense
WASHINGTON >> Donald Trump has always been a man of absolutes.
Something is the best or the worst, a person is a winner or a total loser, an event has never happened before, even when it has.
Absolutism was the unwritten credo of his career in business and is the guiding light of his presidency as he makes an assertion rarely heard from an American president: that he can do as he pleases.
Now that approach faces its ultimate test as a foundation of Trump’s defense in his impeachment trial, namely that he is cloaked with unrestrained authority. How that question is answered, both by the Senate in the impeachment trial and by voters in November, will define how Americans view the concept of presidential power.
Trump’s position reaches well beyond the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice made in the articles of impeachment the Senate is now considering. The views were outlined in legal briefs by his defense team and are expected to be brought up on the Senate floor when Trump’s lawyer resume presenting their case on Monday.
“I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” Trump declared last year, citing Article II of the Constitution. “It gives me all of these rights at a level nobody has ever seen before.”
Not since Richard Nixon told the interviewer David Frost, “When a president does it, it means it’s not illegal,” has a president come close to making an assertion of power as sweeping as Trump’s.
House Democrats prosecuting the impeachment case charge that Trump abused his office by asking Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden while withholding crucial military aid, and obstructed Congress by refusing to turn over documents or allow officials to testify. Republicans defend Trump’s actions as appropriate and cast the process as an effort to weaken the president in the midst of his reelection campaign.
In their trial memo, Trump’s attorneys contend that the obstruction charge is not valid because he was asserting his legal right and immunity granted to him by his position, adding that to question that would cause “grave damage” to the separation of powers.
“President Trump has not in any way ‘abused the powers of the Presidency,’” they argued. “At all times, the president has faithfully and effectively executed the duties of his office on behalf of the American people.”
And his lawyers have said his election gives him the right to refuse subpoenas given to his cabinet and staff, to decline to hand over documents to investigators, and to shut down certain witnesses.
“In order to fulfill his duties to the American people, the Constitution, the Executive Branch, and all future occupants of the Office of the Presidency, President Trump and his Administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.