Tag: Trump abuse of power

Law professor details 4 glaring ‘deficiencies’ with Trump lawyers’ impeachment trial brief: ‘We’ve seen this before with the tantrums’

AlterNet logoOn Monday, January 20, attorneys representing President Donald Trump during his impeachment trial submitted a legal brief voicing their reasons for objecting to the trial. The 109-page brief has been drawing a great deal of criticism from Trump’s opponents, who argue that the attorneys’ reasoning is badly flawed in multiple ways. And law professor Michael J. Gerhardt, analyzing the brief in an article published by Just Security on January 21, cites four fundamental “deficiencies that make it more of a political screed than a legal document deserving of respect and serious consideration by senators, the public, historians and constitutional scholars.”

Deficiency #1, according to Gerhardt, is the “table pounding” tone of the memo — which the law professor criticizes for being “replete with bluster” and using over-the-top rhetoric like “an affront to the Constitution” and “a political tool to overturn the result of the 2016 presidential election.”

“— I am being precise and literal with that choice of words — thrown by Republican members of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees,” observes Gerhardt, who teaches at the University of North Carolina. “The only thing this kind of rhetoric seemingly achieves is energizing the president’s base.” Continue reading.

How McConnell Plans To Conceal New Witnesses In Trump Trial

During the House’s impeachment inquiry, Republicans raged about the process, condemning Democrats for holding witness interviews behind closed doors and even trying to dismiss the entire investigation because of it.

Donald Trump himself said the process had “zero transparency” because of the closed-door depositions. Republicans went as far as protesting the process by storming a secure area of the Capitol where the closed-door depositions were being held, a move that compromised national security.

However, under the impeachment trial rules crafted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, any potential impeachment witnesses would first need to be deposed behind closed doors — adopting a process the GOP attacked Democrats for using. The “Senate shall decide after deposition which witnesses shall testify, pursuant to the impeachment rules,” according to McConnell’s resolution. Continue reading.

The Memo: Day One shows conflicting narratives on impeachment

The Hill logoThe third impeachment trial of an American president got underway in earnest on Tuesday, amid an atmosphere of instant recrimination and polarization.

One small exception came when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made a last-minute concession, announcing that each side would have three days — not two as he had previously asserted — to make its case.

But that was a rare, and relatively minor, shift from McConnell, who has previously said that he would coordinate the conduct of the trial with the White House. Continue reading.

An embarrassing moment for Trump’s legal team

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s impeachment managers made little secret Tuesday that they’d rather put House Democrats on trial than Trump. They repeatedly alleged mistreatment of Trump in his impeachment rather than dwelling upon the evidence against him.

But in one instance, one of them badly overreached.

Appearing shortly after 6 p.m. on the Senate floor, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Jay Sekulow offered an indignant rebuke of the Democrats’ impeachment managers. What he was so incensed about: that they had allegedly referred to “lawyer lawsuits” in prosecuting the case against Trump. Continue reading.

Trump’s impeachment defense is designed to destroy guardrails on presidential power

Washington Post logoSENATE REPUBLICANS on Tuesday were laying the groundwork for a truncated trial of President Trump that would be a perversion of justice. Proposals by Democrats to obtain critical evidence were voted down. Unless several senators change their positions, votes to acquit Mr. Trump on the House’s charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress could come as soon as next week without any testimony by witnesses or review of key documents. That would be unprecedented compared with previous presidential impeachments. It would gravely damage the only mechanism the Constitution provides for checking a rogue president.

Yet the rigging of the trial process may not be the most damaging legacy of the exhibition Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is orchestrating in full collaboration with the White House. That might flow from the brazen case being laid out by Mr. Trump’s lawyers. The defense brief they filed Monday argues that the president “did absolutely nothing wrong” when he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch investigations of Joe Biden and a Russian-promoted conspiracy theory about the 2016 election. It further contends that Mr. Trump was entirely within his rights when he refused all cooperation with the House impeachment inquiry, including rejecting subpoenas for testimony and documents. It says he cannot be impeached because he violated no law.

By asking senators to ratify those positions, Mr. Trump and his lawyers are, in effect, seeking consent for an extraordinary expansion of his powers. An acquittal vote would confirm to Mr. Trump that he is free to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election and to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to induce such interference. It would suggest that he can press foreign leaders to launch a criminal investigation of any American citizen he designates, even in the absence of a preexisting U.S. probe, or any evidence. Continue reading.

Senate rejects subpoenaing Mulvaney to testify in impeachment trial

The Hill logoSenate Republicans rejected an effort by Democrats to call White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to testify at the outset of the impeachment trial.

Democrats forced a vote to get language included in the resolution on the trial rules that would subpoena Mulvaney, who previously defied a subpoena to appear as part of the House impeachment inquiry.

But senators voted 53-47 along party lines to table the amendment, effectively killing it. Democrats needed four Republican senators to support their efforts to get a deal on calling Mulvaney to testify as part of the rules resolution.  Continue reading.

‘That’s not what you said then!’: Alan Dershowitz crashes and burns when confronted with his own words on impeachment

AlterNet logoProminent attorney Alan Dershowitz has thrust himself back into the spotlight for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial as he plans to present a constitutional argument to the lawmakers urging them to vote for acquittal. The White House doesn’t seem to mind that Dershowitz is tainted by his ties to Jeffrey Epstein; two women who say they were trafficked by Epstein have said they were made to have sex with Dershowitz, which the attorney denies.

And as all this hangs over his head, Dershowitz is making increasingly strained defenses of Trump. When Trump was facing accusations based on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report of obstruction of justice, Dershowitz made the argument that a president simply cannot obstruct justice. Now that Trump has been impeached on charges of obstructing Congress and abuse of power, Dershowitz says that these charges, too, are not sufficient for impeachment.

While he’s previously defended Trump by suggesting the president can only be impeached for actual crimes, he now seems to be reverting to the bizarre and unexplained position that the charges have to be “crime-like.” Continue reading.

Even in battleground states, support for removing Trump is higher than his job approval

Washington Post logoBut new polling on impeachment largely reveals an old divid

Ask Americans how they view a very specific facet of the Senate impeachment trial focused on President Trump, and they have an opinion.

Should that trial include witnesses? According to new polling from CNN and its polling partner SSRS, two-thirds of respondents think that it should. That figure includes nearly half of Republicans and about half of those who approve of the job Trump is doing in office.

Continue reading “Even in battleground states, support for removing Trump is higher than his job approval”

McConnell drops two-day limit on opening arguments

The Hill logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in the face of strong criticism from Democrats, is backing off his proposed requirement that House impeachment managers and President Trump’s lawyers each fit their opening arguments into two-day windows.

McConnell amended his organizing resolution for Trump’s impeachment trial at the last minute to give each side three days to make their opening arguments, which can last for up to 24 hours, the same amount of time given to the prosecution and defense during the 1999 impeachment trial of President Clinton.

The GOP leader made another significant amendment to his resolution by allowing the House impeachment inquiry to be entered into the Senate’s official trial record — subject to hearsay objections — something McConnell declined to greenlight in his initial proposal. Continue reading.

Schiff says McConnell setting stage for ‘rigged trial’

The Hill logoHouse Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday over setting the stage for a “rigged” impeachment trial for President Trump.

Schiff, the lead impeachment manager on the House team, zeroed in on a provision in the rules resolution that could force the impeachment trial to go late into the night.

The provision gives the impeachment managers 24 hours to present their arguments, but over just two legislative days, with arguments beginning Wednesday and Thursday at 1 p.m. Continue reading.