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| Trump team begins much anticipated defense at impeachment trial | |
| (about 8 hours later) | |
| Donald Trump’s lawyers started making their case Saturday, with a longer, more meaningful session expected for Monday | |
| Donald Trump’s legal team began their much anticipated defense of the president on Saturday by warning it was a Democratic attempt to overturn the result of the 2016 election. | |
| “They’re asking you not only to overturn the results of the last election, but as I said they’re asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot in an election that’s occurring in approximately nine months,” said Pat Cipollone, White House counsel, as he began a full-throated defense of the embattled president. | |
| “They’re asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country on your own initiative, take that decision away from the American people and I don’t think they spent one minute of their 24 hours talking to you about the consequences of that for our country. Not one minute. ” | |
| Cipollone rounded out his opening remarks with the core of the defense team’s argument: that Trump did not break any laws in an attempt to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating his political rival Joe Biden and that House Democrats have omitted key details to make their case. | |
| “You will find that the president did nothing wrong,” Cipollone said. “But what we intend to do today is go through their record that they established in the House. We intend to show you some of the evidence that they introduced in the House that they decided over their three days and 24 hours that they didn’t have enough time or made a decision not to show you.” | |
| Over the past week, Democrats have taken three days to present the case against Trump in the Senate trial. Voluminous evidence gathered by the impeachment inquiry has attempted to show Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others were part of an effort to press the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden, and Biden’s son Hunter, on baseless corruption charges as well as a discredited theory that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 presidential election. | |
| Nearly $400m in US military aid to Ukraine was temporarily frozen during the same period and the US ambassador to Ukraine – Marie Yovanovitch – was eventually fired, apparently after not being supportive enough of the president’s wishes. | |
| Ahead of the beginning of the session Trump sent out a handful of tweets quoting Fox television host Lou Dobbs and also urging Americans to watch the proceedings – a sign that Trump still obsesses over TV ratings. | |
| Over a three hour period on Saturday, Trump’s lawyers began to argue multiple points in order to poke holes in Democrats’ basis for impeachment. The Trump team has argued that the president’s requests for Ukraine to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden were legitimate. | |
| They were also expected to argue that Trump did not commit any crime and that Democrats’ impeachment efforts are merely politically motivated as a way to delegitimize his presidency. | |
| The launch of Trump’s defense follows an eventful day in the Trump impeachment trial. A new recording emerged on Friday seemingly of Trump calling for Yovanovitch to be removed as ambassador of Ukraine. The recording of Trump making those remarks over dinner to associates was first reported by ABC. | |
| Democrats in the House spent much of Friday laying their argument on how Trump obstructed Congress and why that merited his removal from office. The House intelligence committee chairman, Adam Schiff, called Trump an “imminent threat to the integrity of our democracy” and warned that the president would never change. | Democrats in the House spent much of Friday laying their argument on how Trump obstructed Congress and why that merited his removal from office. The House intelligence committee chairman, Adam Schiff, called Trump an “imminent threat to the integrity of our democracy” and warned that the president would never change. |
| The ongoing impeachment proceedings do not seem to have dramatically moved voters, although the president remains underwater. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 44% of voters approve of the president’s job performance while 51% disapprove. | The ongoing impeachment proceedings do not seem to have dramatically moved voters, although the president remains underwater. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 44% of voters approve of the president’s job performance while 51% disapprove. |
| Trump’s job approval number is up slightly from 38% in October. That seems largely due to the strong American economy. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said they approved of the president’s stewardship of the economy. But on impeachment, 39% approved of how the president has navigated the impeachment trial while 50% disapproved. | Trump’s job approval number is up slightly from 38% in October. That seems largely due to the strong American economy. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said they approved of the president’s stewardship of the economy. But on impeachment, 39% approved of how the president has navigated the impeachment trial while 50% disapproved. |