President Trump is blasting back at impeachment, but he will feel its scars deeply, according to people who know him.
Trump, for all his belligerence and bluster, is viewed by many who have been close to him as acutely insecure.
He has sought validation and respect for much of his adult life — and has often been frustrated when it has not been forthcoming.
With lawmakers at odds over a trial’s format, impeachment proceedings are in limbo.Top Democrats on Sunday renewed their demands for witnesses to testify at President Trump’s impeachment trial, citing newly released emails showing that the White House asked officials to keep quiet over the suspension of military aid to Ukraine just 90 minutes after Mr. Trump leaned on that country’s president to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The emails, released late Friday by the Trump administration to the Center for Public Integrity, shed new light on Mr. Trump’s effort to solicit Ukraine to help him win re-election in 2020, the matter at the heart of the House’s vote on Wednesday to impeach him for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
With the Senate’s Democratic and Republican leaders at odds over the trial’s format, Democrats seized on the emails in an effort to put pressure on Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader. Mr. McConnell, who wants a bare-bones proceeding, has rejected a proposal by his Democratic counterpart, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, to have four top White House officials testify.
An official from the White House budget office directed the Defense Department to “hold off” on sending military aid to Ukraine less than two hours after President Trump’s controversial phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to internal emails.
Michael Duffey, a senior budget official, told Pentagon officials that Trump had become personally interested in the Ukraine aid and had ordered the hold, according to the heavily redacted emails, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity on Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. He also asked the Pentagon not to discuss the hold widely.
“Given the sensitive nature of the request, I appreciate your keeping that information closely held to those who need to know to execute the direction,” Duffey wrote in a July 25 email to Pentagon Comptroller Elaine McCusker and others.
The language would have required the White House to release Ukraine defense aid quickly.Senior Trump administration officials in recent days threatened a presidential veto that could have led to a government shutdown if House Democrats refused to drop language requiring prompt release of future military aid for Ukraine, according to five administration and congressional officials.
The language was ultimately left out of mammoth year-end spending legislation that passed the House and Senate this week ahead of a Saturday shutdown deadline. The White House said President Trump signed the $1.4 trillion package Friday night.
The Ukraine provision was one of several items the White House drew a hard line on during negotiations to finalize the spending legislation, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the developments. It would have required the White House to swiftly release $250 million in defense money for Ukraine that was part of the spending package.
President Trump is facing down a historic impeachment vote Wednesday that will give him the dubious distinction of being one of just three U.S. presidents to be impeached by the House.
The president seethed Tuesday during an Oval Office meeting and sent a blistering six-page letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling for an end to the “impeachment fantasy” and accusing Democrats of “subverting America’s democracy.”
Trump has been defiant throughout the months-long impeachment process, refusing to cooperate with House Democrats or accept a shred of culpability for landing in his current predicament.
This Wednesday, December 18, the two articles of impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee approved against President Donald Trump — one for abuse of power, the other for obstruction of Congress — are expected to come up for a full vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. If the Democrat-controlled House votes to indict Trump on those articles (which is likely), they would go to the U.S. Senate for consideration. Trump, the day before the expected House vote, sent a long-winded, rambling letter to House Speaker Pelosi and railed against House Democrats for pursuing impeachment.
Here are some of the most absurd things Trump said to Pelosi in his December 17 letter.
1. Trump claimed his July 25 conversation with Zelensky was ‘totally innocent’
Pelosi and other House Democrats have been stressing that Trump crossed the line when he tried to bully Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. But Trump, in his letter, told Pelosi, “I had a totally innocent conversation with the president of Ukraine…. I said to President Zelensky, ‘I would like you to do us a favor, though’…. I said do us a favor, not me, and our country, not a campaign.”
The action is a step in a process. It’s not only warranted in this case but essential.Opinion editor’s note: This article was submitted on behalf of multiple legal scholars at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law. They are listed below.
Last week, we joined more than 800 of our colleagues from around the country and signed a “Letter to Congress from Legal Scholars”(tinyurl.com/legal-scholars). This letter concluded that President Donald Trump engaged in impeachable conduct.
Also last week, the U.S. House announced that it will bring two articles of impeachment against President Trump, charging him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. This will set in motion the third impeachment of a U.S. president in history.
In light of these extraordinary events, we are writing separately to reiterate to our local community why, as legal scholars, we believe that President Trump engaged in impeachable conduct. We also write to explain why, as citizens, we believe that he should be impeached. Continue reading
President Donald Trump has no right to prevent Congress from obtaining the testimony of White House Counsel Don McGahn through a subpoena as the House pursues impeachment, according to a new legal filing made by twenty former Republican lawmakers, government officials, and legal experts.
The filing, as Politico reported, argues on an originalist and conservative basis that the president does not have the authority to unilaterally undermine congressional oversight. This position is in tension, somewhat, with Attorney General Bill Barr’s conservative legal view and disposition which favors expansive presidential powers and discretion — at least when a Republican is in the White House.
The argument takes the form of an amicus brief, which is filed by parties who are not subjects of the dispute but want to offer an opinion on the case. It was organized by Protect Democracy, a group that sprang up in response to Trump’s presidency. Continue reading
House Democrats took the historic step Wednesday of impeaching President Trump, a momentous move that will send long-lasting reverberations throughout the Capitol and the country, both already fiercely divided over the truculent figure in the Oval Office.
The two articles, which charge Trump with abusing power and obstructing Congress in his dealings with Ukraine, passed almost exclusively along party lines, marking the most sectarian and contentious of the three presidential impeachments since the nation’s founding — and the first to target a president in his first term.
Lawmakers voted 230 to 197 on the resolution accusing Trump of abusing his power, with all Republicans opposed and only two Democrats — Reps. Collin Peterson (Minn.) and Jeff Van Drew (N.J.) — crossing the aisle in dissent. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), a Democratic presidential candidate, voted present. Continue reading
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday tore into an initial offer from Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on impeachment trial rules.
McConnell, speaking from the Senate floor, described the proposal from the Democratic leader as “dead wrong” and warned that it “could set a nightmarish precedent for our institution.”
“The Senate Democratic leader would apparently like our chamber to do House Democrats’ homework for them. He wants to volunteer the Senate’s time and energy on a fishing expedition,” McConnell said.
