Democrats, Trump spar in pre-trial impeachment filings

WASHINGTON (SBG) — Lawyers for President Trump plan to mount a "robust" defense of his conduct in the Ukraine episode "on the facts," sources working with the president's legal team said on Thursday, hours ahead of the start of the Senate impeachment trial that will grip the capital for weeks.

Across 171 pages mixing constitutional citations with the kind of blunt rhetoric for which their client is known, attorneys for Mr. Trump argued in a "Trial Memorandum" that the two articles of impeachment on which the president is soon to stand trial are "irredeemably defective" for a variety of reasons, most notably because the charges fail to assert a specific crime committed by the president.

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"After focus-group testing various charges for weeks, House Democrats settled on two flimsy Articles of Impeachment that allege no crime or violation of law whatsoever—much less 'high Crimes and Misdemeanors,' as required by the Constitution," the president's attorneys, led by White House Counsel Pat A. Cipollone, wrote. "They do not remotely approach the constitutional threshold for removing a President from office."

Some observers disputed this claim, noting that the Democrats' 111-page "Trial Memorandum," released on Saturday and buttressed by a lengthy "Statement of Material Facts," referenced a recent conclusion that the president violated the law. This was the decision issued last week by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the Congress, which found the suspension of nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, held up while the president and his aides sought to get the government in Kiev to announce investigations into the Biden family, violated the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

But the president's lawyers flatly dismissed the GAO finding and its inclusion in the Democrats' trial memorandum. Sources working with the president's legal team said the GAO findings, released January 16, were not included in the articles of impeachment, which were approved by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives almost a month earlier, on December 18. “We’re going to try on a specific set of charges spelled out in a charging document," one of the sources said in a briefing with reporters. "The charging document doesn’t include anything about that GAO report, so in our view that’s not properly part of the accusation that’s been brought to the Senate.”

The administration also notes that GAO is an arm of Congress, its conclusions often disputed by the president regardless of party affiliation.

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The president's trial memorandum also argued that the second article of impeachment, charging Mr. Trump with "obstruction of Congress" after the White House blocked House lawmakers from access to numerous witnesses and selected documents, was also invalid, because it failed to recognize the legitimate prerogatives of the chief executive in disputes with the legislative branch.

“House Democrats have essentially announced that they may treat any resistance to their demands as ‘obstruction’ without taking any steps to resolve their dispute with the president," Mr. Trump's lawyers argued, adding: "Accepting that unprecedented approach would fundamentally damage the separation of powers by making the House itself the sole judge of its authority.”

The sources said the president's filing represented his first opportunity to state "comprehensively" his case for why he does not deserve to be convicted. In the trial set to start on Tuesday, a vote of two-thirds majority in the Republican-controlled Senate on either of the two articles of impeachment would trigger the president's removal from office.

The Democrats' pre-trial filings, however, presented anew a case to which Americans have been exposed repeatedly since September 25, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her caucus was conducting a formal impeachment inquiry. "President Trump abused the power of his office by pressuring the government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election for his own benefit," read the document, submitted to the Senate in the names of the seven House "managers," or prosecutors. trying the case against Mr. Trump. "President Trump personally demanded that his top aides refuse to testify in response to subpoenas, and nine Administration officials followed his directive and continue to defy subpoenas for testimony."

New to the Democrats' filings was their inclusion of numerous allegations and pieces of evidence, in addition to the GAO decision, that have only arisen since the articles were adopted last month. These additions included documents and personal accounts provided in recent days by Lev Parnas, a Florida businessman and associate of the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was recently indicted on campaign finance charges. While Parnas has pleaded not guilty, he has supplied House investigators and selected media outlets with materials and recollections alleging the president was deeply involved in the effort to pressure Kiev. Mr. Trump has said he barely knew Parnas outside of an occasional posed photograph together. Also included in the Democrats' filing was the offer of former White House national security adviser John Bolton, made on January 6, to testify in the Senate trial if he is summoned to do so.

Asked if they were concerned that the Democrats had used their pre-trial memorandum as a "back door" to get allegations and evidence admitted into the Senate proceeding that were not part of the actual articles of impeachment, the sources working with the president's legal team said they were not. The sources said the briefs are "not in evidence," and will not be "moved into evidence" during the course of the Senate trial.