Tag: Senate impeachment trial

Trump lawyers attack House impeachment as ‘brazen and unlawful’ effort to overturn 2016 results

The Hill logoPresident Trump’s legal team on Saturday declared the impeachment articles approved by the House “constitutionally invalid” and accused House Democrats of a “brazen and unlawful attempt” to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election.

The president’s team of lawyers — led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump personal attorney Jay Sekulow — submitted a six-page answer to the summons notifying the president of the Senate impeachment trial Saturday evening.

The filing launches a broadside against the House impeachment process, while denying the charges against the president and casting the articles as an “affront” to the Constitution, democratic institutions and the American people. The president’s lawyers urge the Senate to reject the charges. Continue reading.

Trump may not be removed by the Senate, but he’s still terrified of his trial — here’s why

AlterNet logoDonald Trump is scared. The Senate trial following his impeachment for a blackmail and campaign cheating scheme starts next week, and it’s driving him to distraction. He was supposed to host a lame event at the White House on Thursday to bolster fake concerns that white evangelicals are being oppressed, but blew off pandering to his strongest supporters for an hour, likely because he couldn’t pry himself away from news coverage of the impeachment trial’s kickoff. After ending the event swiftly, Trump then tweeted angrily, “I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!”

(As with most things the president says, this was untrue — he was impeached weeks ago, in December.)

Trump’s cold sweats are significant, because everyone who has been following this case knows that the Senate will acquit him. Not because he’s innocent — no one who has actually consulted the evidence is foolish enough to believe that — but because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans who control the Senate decided long ago that they would cover up for their shamelessly corrupt president no matter what he does. With such an assured outcome, Trump’s fears seem overblown and silly, even for someone crippled by sociopathic narcissism and its accompanying paranoia. Continue reading.

GOP threatens to weaponize impeachment witnesses amid standoff

The Hill logoRepublicans are threatening to weaponize a fight on Senate impeachment witnesses amid growing concerns that moderates within their caucus could help Democrats call former national security adviser John Bolton to testify. 

After weeks of pledging that they would hold a quick trial with no witnesses from either side, Republicans — from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on down — are sending public warning shots that if their GOP colleagues open the door to Democratic witnesses they’ll respond in kind, forcing votes on a slew of controversial individuals.

The pressure tactics are the latest shift in strategy as Republican leaders try to navigate the factions in their caucus, where moderates want to leave the potential for witnesses on the table and conservatives are anxious to quickly acquit President Trump.  Continue reading.

GOP Senators Swear To Do ‘Impartial Justice’

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts officially swore in senators on Thursday for the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, asking all senators to take an oath of impartiality.

“Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, president of the United States, now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help you God?” reads the oath 99 senators swore, signing their name in a book to make their oath official. One senator was missing from the swearing in: Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, who was in his home state tending to a sick family member.

By taking that oath, however, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham committed perjury, as both previously said aloud that they do not plan to be impartial at all. Continue reading.

Trump trial poses toughest test yet for Roberts

The Hill logoChief Justice John Roberts will soon discover firsthand that while the Supreme Court and the Senate sit on adjacent Washington city blocks, the two institutions occupy separate worlds.

Roberts on Thursday appeared in the Senate in his black robes to preside over President Trump‘s impeachment trial, leaving the collegiality of the court for a chamber marked in recent years by partisan fighting.

The chief justice was led by a procession of Judiciary Committee and Rules Committee members to the well of the chamber. There, he raised his right hand and swore to do “impartial justice” — the kind of oath he is more accustomed to hearing from advocates before the Supreme Court. Continue reading.

Senate GOP hopes for a drama-free impeachment trial while bracing for Trump and his legal team

Washington Post logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gave a knowing smile when the only hiccup of Thursday’s formalities got resolved: After a brief pause, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. realized he had to gavel the impeachment trial out of session, adjourning until Tuesday.

McConnell got the day’s ending he had hoped for, a Senate looking somber and serious as it conducts President Trump’s impeachment trial. A Senate that might, as he put it a day before, be capable of rising above “short-termism and factional fever.”

But that fever lingers as the sides jockey for position when the real phase of the trial kicks in, with early skirmishes about calling witnesses getting overtaken by talks about what limits could be placed on the presentation of evidence. Continue reading.

‘Weak’: Former White House counsel breaks down why McConnell’s arguments on impeachment ‘precedent’ are deeply flawed

AlterNet logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t consider himself an “impartial juror” in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial and that he will be coordinating with Trump in the weeks ahead. One of the Kentucky Republican’s arguments is that Trump’s impeachment, unlike the impeachment of Present Bill Clinton in the late 1990s, has not been handled in a fair way. But former White House Counsel Bob Bauer, in a January 16 article for Benjamin Wittes’ Lawfare website, lays out some of reasons why McConnell’s arguments on impeachment “precedent” are misleading.

McConnell has argued that Trump’s impeachment in the U.S. House of Representatives was handled in an overtly “partisan” manner by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and other Democrats — while Clinton’s impeachment in the late 1990s was not. Bauer totally disagrees.

“McConnell’s history is weak,” Bauer asserts. “More than 90% of the House Republicans voted for Clinton’s impeachment; more than 90% of Republican senators voted for convicting him. By any measure, among lawmakers, there was overwhelming Republican Party support for ousting a Democratic president from office. McConnell’s professed claims of historically unprecedented partisanship is founded on the pointless distinction between fully party-line and just-over-90% party-line support.” Continue reading.

New allegations, watchdog report complicate GOP position on impeachment trial

The Hill logoA flood of captivating new details surrounding President Trump‘s dealings with Ukraine has spilled out into the public just as the Senate begins the impeachment trial, putting fresh pressure on GOP leaders to consider witnesses and new documents.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday issued a stunning report, accusing the White House budget office of breaking the law by withholding military aid to Ukraine — the very issue at the heart of the Democrats’ impeachment effort.

Separately, a close associate of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, has delivered a trove of information to House Democrats related to Giuliani’s campaign to pressure Ukrainian leaders to find dirt on the president’s political rivals. Lev Parnas, a Soviet-born Florida businessman facing unrelated campaign-finance charges in New York, is also making the media rounds to deliver a damning message: Trump, he says, was privy to the pressure campaign from the start. Continue reading.

Eyeing swift impeachment trial, Trump’s legal team aims to block witnesses and cast doubt on charges

Washington Post logoWhite House lawyers are trying to engineer the fastest impeachment trial in American history, aiming to have President Trump acquitted by the Senate without witnesses and after just a few days of proceedings, according to senior administration officials.

Trump’s desire for a short trial has solidified over the past few weeks, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delayed transmitting two articles of impeachment to the Senate because of concerns about how the trial would be structured. The White House, which previously supported a more expansive trial in the GOP-led Senate, has now accepted the idea that senators should make quick work of acquitting Trump.

“I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely that we’d be going beyond two weeks,” said a senior administration official, who briefed reporters Wednesday on the condition of anonymity. “We think that this case is overwhelming for the president, and the Senate’s not going to be having any need to be taking that amount of time on this.” Continue reading.