- President’s team – last day of opening statements to the Senate
- 58.33% of the time should be enough
More substance to these articles than what Nancies in the House produced
The defense of the concept of a constitutional republic ended opening statements yesterday. The defense team either determined that the attention span of the senators was at its end or their case was sufficiently simple and strong, history and implications beckoning, to forgo ten hours of the allotted twenty-four in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. The trial of the nation now proceeds to a period of written questioning from the Senators and the possibility of witness testimony and subpoenas, now likely to some extent. Here are some excerpts from informative reports about the day.
Jay Sekulow Asks Senators to ‘Put Themselves in the President’s Shoes’ via Townhall
Washington, D.C. – “Danger, danger, danger.” That was the theme of Jay Sekulow’s presentation on the last day of opening arguments in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. At issue, he noted, is whether or not the president abused his power by ignoring the advice of some of his staff on his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. The White House defense team says he unequivocally did not and that there was no apparent quid pro quo when Trump asked Ukraine to investigate the Bidens’ Burisma scandal.
“To lower the bar of impeachment would impact the functioning of our republic,” Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law & Justice, argued on Tuesday.
So he urged the jurors to “put themselves in the president’s shoes.” Sekulow helped them do that by recapping a few of the abuses Trump has experienced the past few years, even before he became president. Such as Crossfire Hurricane. In 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and members of his campaign were the subjects of surveillance thanks to a FISA warrant that had been obtained on the basis of an unverified and salacious dossier. A scathing Inspector General report released in December detailed just how much the FISA court had been abused.
. . . The FISA court, Sekulow explained, features no cross examination.
“It was a court based on trust,” Sekulow said. “That trust was violated.”
The abuse didn’t stop there. Former FBI Director James Comey decided to leak a conversation he had with the president, which Sekulow said was done in order to obtain the appointment of a special counsel. The FBI lawyer who committed fraud was then appointed to the Robert Mueller case.
Does any of this, Sekulow asked his audience, “bother your sense of justice?”
“Then we ask why the president is concerned about the advice he’s being given?” he added.
Sekulow asked the senators to put themselves in Trump’s shoes one more time, this time in regards to his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. As others have jocosely noted, Trump was on that call with about “3,000 of his closest friends.”
“He knew what he was saying,” Sekulow argued.
Trump’s team wrapped up their closing arguments quickly on Tuesday. The Senate will reconvene on Wednesday to submit questions on each side.
Here is How Questioning From Senators Will Be Handled During the Impeachment Trial Today (via Townhall) (excerpt)
Like in the Clinton trial, Republicans and Democrats will alternate questions. The questions will only be directed toward Democrat House managers and attorneys representing President Trump. Senators are not allowed to ask each other questions and cannot directly challenge answers once they were given. Questions will not be asked by Senators directly, but instead will be submitted in writing to Chief Justice John Roberts, who will then read them out loud. The questions cannot be asked anonymously and must be signed by the Senators submitting the question. Questions can also be submitted as a group and around a dozen questions will be allowed before Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calls for a break. Democrat managers and attorneys for the President can take as much time as they’d like to answer submitted question. There is no time limit on their response.
Like previous days, the Senate will convene at 1 pm et to begin.
Sixteen hours have been allotted for questioning. When the questioning period is over, the Senate will vote on whether to call new witnesses not previously interviewed during the House inquiry. As of Tuesday night, McConnell reportedly does not have enough votes to block additional and new witnesses from being called or subpoenaed.
Pat Cipollone Wraps Up Trump Defense With Brilliant Ending, Using Dems’ Words Against Themselves (Via RedStae) (Excerpt)
The Trump defense team wrapped up their case today.
One of the things that made their presentation light years better than that of the House Democratic managers and the bloviating of folks like House Intel Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) was the simple, straight forward way they made their presentation, appealing to facts, logic and the Constitution.
Pat Cipollone exemplified that again today as he closed in a brilliant way. He noted the basic fact that Democrats sought to obscure – that the case and the articles of impeachment they’ve put forth don’t meet the constitutional standard for impeachment. That the Democratic articles are dangerous, because they are not what the Framers intended impeachment to be. Cipollone said that if you looked to the words of the past that they were true then and they’re true now. He then played the words of Democrats including present impeachment managers inveighing against partisan impeachment in 1998.
Bolton’s sour grapes should not extend impeachment ( via Americans for Limited Government)
“Yesterday’s presentation by the President’s team proves conclusively that not only are the Articles of Impeachment constitutionally invalid, but the President’s actions in his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were completely justified given former Vice President Joe Biden’s deep and obvious conflict of interests due to his son’s board membership of the corrupt natural gas firm, Burisma. There is simply no excuse for anyone to vote to hear additional witnesses as no one will be able to change the facts. The Ukrainians did not know that any military assistance was being withheld until it was reported publicly, and the monies were released well in advance of the end of the fiscal year. In fact, it was released on the same day John Bolton was fired for his ongoing attempts to get America embroiled in wars around the world. It is a shame Bolton has allowed his hurt ego and his desire to score book sales to drive this naked attempt to harm the President of the United States. This is particularly true since he cannot say anything that will change the facts of the case that demand acquittal.”
If Bolton says Trump ‘wanted’ to freeze $391 million of military aid to Ukraine until investigations were announced, why was it never communicated to Ukraine? (via Americans for Limited Government – Robert Romaro) (excerpts)
“President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.”
That was the New York Times’ preview of potential testimony by former National Security Advisor John Bolton at the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, where the President allegedly told Bolton “he preferred sending no assistance to Ukraine until officials had turned over all materials they had about the Russia investigation that related to Mr. Biden and supporters of Mrs. Clinton in Ukraine.”
That, we are led to believe, if and when he ever testifies, will be Bolton’s description of the President’s intent with regards to the aid, which was ultimately released on Sept. 11, the same day Bolton was fired.
“Wanted.”
“Preferred.”
And yet, neither the White House nor the State Department never directly conveyed any such conditions to Ukraine, despite the aid being frozen in July, until after Politico broke the story of the aid being frozen on Aug. 28, undercutting the key part of the House’s prosecution — that military assistance to Ukraine was threatened unless investigations were announced.
Even then, the only official who conveyed such conditions, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, said in House testimony he was simply presuming the aid was being conditioned: “No one told me directly that the aid was tied to anything. I was presuming it was.” . . .
But even if it had been conditioned, those are all things the President has the power to do constitutionally under Article II and legally under laws passed by Congress. That is, reviewing military assistance to a non-treaty partner to see if it serves U.S. interests, or whether Ukraine is simply too corrupt to deal with.
In this case, the question is on military assistance to Ukraine, which is not in NATO but is embroiled in a civil war with pro-Russian forces, that could lead to a wider regional war in Europe or a global one involving the U.S. and Russia, risking a nuclear exchange, raising national security concerns. Of course the President should be reviewing such a hotspot to ensure it doesn’t lead to a wider war. That’s his job to keep us out of wars.
The funds were initially frozen in July by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the agencies authority under 31 U.S.C. 1512 to conduct apportionments while the President considered whether or not to request a rescission of the funding under the Impoundment Control Act.
The Office of Management and Budget says it did nothing wrong, with OMB communications director Rachel Semmel issuing a statement saying, “As has been well documented, we fully complied with the law and decades of precedent with respect to these funds. Congress is notified if the administration intends to rescind, defer, reprogram or transfer funding, but in this case none of those things occurred and the funding was obligated as planned.” . . .
So, a good question would be why Bolton thinks presidents can unilaterally terminate treaties that require Senate ratification with military allies to keep us out of an unintentional war, but not pause appropriated military assistance to a non-treaty partner when it could drag us into one.
Either way, this boils down to a policy disagreement between Bolton and Trump, not a high crime or misdemeanor, and certainly not an act of bribery or treason. If this is all the House has, the President’s acquittal is all but certain.
