Trump legal team calls impeachment 'brazen' attempt to overturn election
Donald Trump’s legal team has delivered a fiery
response to impeachment summons from the Senate, calling the two articles
passed by the House “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 lawyers said on
Saturday, also claiming the charges against the president were invalid as they
did not concern a crime.
Impeachment is a political process, not a criminal
one. Under the US constitution, the president can be removed if found guilty of
whatever lawmakers consider to be “high crimes and misdemeanours”. Trump is
charged with abusing his power and obstructing Congress.
On Saturday, House impeachment managers outlined
their view of the case against Trump in a 111-page legal brief of their own. It
pulls together private and public testimony of a dozen witnesses, ambassadors
and national security officials at high levels of government.
In a joint statement, the seven managers led by the
Democratic intelligence committee chair Adam Schiff said their case was
“simple, the facts are indisputable, and the evidence is overwhelming:
President Trump abused the power of his office to solicit foreign interference
in our elections for his own personal political gain, thereby jeopardising our
national security, the integrity of our elections, and our democracy”.
“And when the president got caught, he tried to
cover it up by obstructing the House’s investigation into his misconduct.”
Trump’s legal team, led by White House counsel Pat
Cipollone and Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, is challenging the impeachment
on both procedural and constitutional grounds, claiming Trump has been
mistreated by House Democrats and that he did nothing wrong.
Trump will file a more detailed legal brief on
Monday, and the House will be able to respond to the Trump filing on Tuesday.
The case hinges on a 25 July phone call with
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which Trump asked his counterpart to
do him a “favour” and investigate both a conspiracy theory concerning election
interference and ties between former vice-president Joe Biden and his son,
Hunter Biden, and the eastern European country.
Biden remains a possible Democratic candidate for
president. At the time of the Ukraine call, Trump was withholding from Kyiv
nearly $400m of military aid and the prospect of a White House meeting for
Zelenskiy.
Trump’s legal team for the Senate trial, starting on
Tuesday,will also include Ken Starr, whose investigation led to the impeachment
of Bill Clinton, and former Harvard professor, Alan Dershowitz.
Both have been fixtures on Fox News. Some in the
administration have echoed warnings from Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell
that the lawyers must be sensitive to staid Senate traditions and not use the
sharp rhetoric exhibited during House proceedings last year.
Many observers suggest the slow nature of the trial
will prove a turnoff to the American public, boosting Trump’s hopes of
surviving unscathed. Others report that the president wants to add fire and TV
knowhow to the team mounting his defence.
White House lawyers
succeeded in blocking Trump from adding House Republicans to his team, the AP
reported, but also advised against picking Dershowitz. They are concerned about
the professor’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who killed
himself in a New York jail last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking
charges.
Dershowitz has said he will deliver constitutional
arguments defending Trump from allegations he abused his power and obstructed
Congress.
Former New York mayor and current Trump lawyer Rudy
Giuliani told the AP the president had a “top-notch” team and insisted he was
not disappointed to be excluded. Giuliani, who many in the White House blame
for leading Trump to impeachment over Ukraine, said his focus would be on being
a potential witness.
On Friday, House Democrats released documents, text
messages, audio recordings and photos turned over by Lev Parnas, a Giuliani
associate indicted on campaign finance charges. The release included photos of
the Soviet-born businessman posing with Giuliani, Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
Messages between Parnas and a staffer for Devin
Nunes, a congressman and Trump ally, were also released. Parnas appeared to be
connecting the staffer to Ukrainian officials who pushed unfounded corruption
allegations against the Bidens.
The documents also raised more questions about the
security of Marie Yovanovitch, a former ambassador to Ukraine who testified in
House impeachment proceedings. An unidentified individual with a Belgian
country code appeared to describe Yovanovitch’s movements.
The document release followed the announcement by
the Government Accountability Office that the White House violated federal law
by withholding congressionally approved security aid.
The White House said it did not have to follow
decisions by the GAO because it is an arm of Congress. White House officials
noted that Trump did send the aid to Kyiv.
But the GAO report and Parnas documents intensified
the pressure senators have been under to call more witnesses for the trial. The
White House has instructed officials to disregard subpoenas seeking testimony
or information.
On Saturday Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a moderate
Republican wooed by Democrats, told reporters she was comfortable waiting to
decide if more information was needed until after hearing arguments from House
managers and attorneys for Trump and questions from other senators.
Trump seems certain to survive the Senate trial, as
a two-thirds majority will be needed to convict and remove him and Republicans
remain in line behind him.
In their statement on Saturday, the House
impeachment managers said senators “must accept and fulfil the responsibility
placed on them by the framers of our constitution and the oaths they have just
taken to do impartial justice. They must conduct a fair trial – fair to the
president and fair to the American people”.