President Donald Trump launched his first formal attack on the House’s effort to remove him from office on Saturday, calling the Democrats’ impeachment case against him fatally flawed and “constitutionally invalid” while blasting the effort as a political hit job by his adversaries.
“This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election,” Trump’s lawyers argued in a six-page response filed with the Senate just days before the president’s trial begins in earnest, according to sources close to Trump’s legal team.
The allegations raised by Trump’s attorneys — going after both the substance of the impeachment articles and the process Democrats used to get there — mirror the House’s charges against him. Democrats allege the president pressured Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election on his behalf by launching investigations into his political opponents.
Saturday’s initial reply will be followed by a more exhaustive trial brief that’s due on Monday.
In its first filing, the Trump legal team hammered what it calls “procedural irregularities” in the House’s impeachment process and the decision by Democrats not to accuse the president of committing a statutory crime.
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“The bottom line is, in the end, this entire process is nothing more than a dangerous attack on the American people themselves and their fundamental right to vote,” said one of the sources close to the Trump lawyers.
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BREAKING: President Trump launched his first formal attack on the House’s effort to remove him from office on Saturday calling the Democrats’ impeachment case against him fatally flawed and “constitutionally invalid” https://t.co/OpxU3fzePv
— POLITICO (@politico) January 18, 2020
This is not a serious defense. They are planning for a sham trial. https://t.co/aOh0e4VIU5
— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) January 18, 2020
Oh the drama!
Thank God I’m going to be on a beach all this coming week — far away from the tv and the wall-to-wall coverage of this farce.
“The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”
—Federalist No. 65 (Alexander Hamilton)
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 17, 2020
“The limitation of the period of his service, was not a sufficient security. He might lose his capacity after his appointment. He might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 17, 2020
“Mr. RANDOLPH. The propriety of impeachments was a favorite principle with him. Guilt wherever found ought to be punished.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 17, 2020
“Should no regular punishment be provided, it will be irregularly inflicted by tumults & insurrections.”
—Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, Reported by James Madison, Friday, July 20, 1787
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 17, 2020
President's lawyers: Impeachment was a rigged process all about a perfect phone call. It's like Presidential tweets reformatted to look like a legal document. https://t.co/H7gvaC3O17 pic.twitter.com/VSd0N5DMBh
— Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) January 20, 2020
President Trump’s lawyers on Monday offered a sweeping condemnation of the articles of impeachment against him.https://t.co/50P6Lybr9y
— POLITICO (@politico) January 20, 2020
Read Trump trial memorandum by kballuck1 on Scribd
Entirely unmentioned, and therefore undefended, in Trump's impeachment brief: the time Trump tried to get Zelenskyy to investigate the insane conspiracy theory that CrowdStrike hid the evidence that Ukraine, rather than Russia, actually hacked the DNC. https://t.co/KlFpNB8qpx pic.twitter.com/FhdmXfSYh9
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) January 20, 2020
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