The defense team presented arguments modeled on those advanced since September by Donald Trump and the Republicans.
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TheDonald Trump’s lawyers presented their line of defense on Saturday before the US President’s impeachment trial, which begins Tuesday, begins, which they consider unconstitutional and “dangerous”.
> Donald Trump on his impeachment trial: “It’s a masquerade”
In a first “response” written to the indictment drawn up by the House of Representatives with only democratic voices, the lawyers consider that it is “a dangerous attack on the right of the Americans to choose their president freely” , a source close to the defense team told reporters. “It is a brazen and illegal attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election,” she added.
The Republican billionaire is formally accused of having abused his power by demanding that Ukraine investigate his political adversary Joe Biden, well placed to confront him during the presidential election in November. According to the indictment, he put pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by conditioning an invitation to the White House and crucial military aid to Kiev to announce these investigations. Next, he is accused of obstructing the House’s investigation by refusing any government cooperation.
“Illegal”
“The indictment is constitutionally inadmissible” and “does not involve any crime or violation of the law,” said the same source close to the president’s legal team. Another source, who also presented the White House’s response, said that the indictment “violates the Constitution” because it arose out of an investigation by the Democrats “that grossly deprived the president of his rights”. This impeachment procedure risks “lasting damage to the institutions,” she warned.
In detail, these sources argued that President Trump had finally met his Ukrainian counterpart in September at the UN, and that military aid had been released – even if, in the meantime, a whistleblower at inside the administration had sparked the case. So there was no give-and-take imposed on Kiev by the former New York businessman, they argued.
Pat Cipollone, a White House lawyer, will lead the defense team, the presidency announced on Friday. He will be assisted by Jay Sekulow, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. But the presidential camp also announced the arrival in this team of the ex-prosecutor Kenneth Starr, central actor of the Lewinsky affair and the dismissal trial of the former president Bill Clinton, and the constitutionalist Alan Dershowitz, who was one of OJ’s lawyers Simpson.
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