Trump news: Senators call for 'nothing but the truth' in final plea for witnesses after president's lawyers reject calls for Bolton testimony
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Donald Trump’s legal team delivered its closing remarks at the US Senate impeachment trial on Tuesday, working to discredit the Democratic-led investigation into the president’s conduct towards Ukraine and fixating on Hunter Biden.
The final defence comes as Democratic senators have characterised their arguments as “nonsensical”, “absurd” and “incredibly surreal”. The team of attorneys gave their closing remarks, which ends the initial phase of the trial, just as a new survey indicated a staggering majority of millennials across the country support the impeachment against Mr Trump, with 63 per cent of those surveyed saying they want senators to vote to remove the president from the Oval Office.
The US Senate was set to vote at the end of the week about whether to add witnesses to the ongoing trial, following a leak of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s new memoir that appeared to directly connect Mr Trump to demand for political investigations into Joe Biden.
The president has meanwhile unveiled his ambitions plans to bring peace to the Middle East today alongside Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just before heading to Wildwood, New Jersey, for his latest "Keep America Great" rally.
He also backed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his battle with National Public Radio and tweeted out more media criticism, one target familiar and the other less so.
The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020
Show all 25Mr Trump introduced Mr Pompeo at an East Room announcement of the administration's Mideast peace plan, saying it was "very impressive" that he got a standing ovation from the White House workers and guests.
"That reporter couldn't have done too good a job on you," the president said. "I think you did a good job on her, actually."
NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly angered Mr Pompeo with a short interview on Friday, then he reportedly berated her afterward in his office. The State Department then announced Monday that NPR reporter Michele Kelemen would not be allowed on Mr Pompeo's upcoming trip to Europe and Central Asia; NPR had no immediate comment on the president's remarks on Tuesday.
Earlier Tuesday, the president tweeted an insult at CNN's Don Lemon, who received some criticism in conservative media for hosting a segment over the weekend where two of his guests made fun of the "rube demo" that backed Mr Trump.
He also tweeted criticism of his favourite network, Fox News Channel, for "trying to be 'politically correct"' by having a Democratic senator discuss impeachment on the network.
The president said Fox's Chris Wallace, who on Monday challenged a Fox contributor for not having her facts straight in a discussion about impeachment witnesses, shouldn't be on the network.
"What the hell has happened to Fox News?" Mr Trump tweeted. "Only I know!"
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Trump legal defence branded 'nonsensical' and 'incredibly surreal'
Donald Trump’s legal counsel continued to make the case for the defence at his Senate impeachment trial on Monday, working to discredit the Democratic-led investigation into the president’s conduct towards Ukraine and fixating on Hunter Biden.
The lawyers found themselves speaking in the wake of damaging revelations published by The New York Times concerning the forthcoming new memoir by ex-national security adviser John Bolton, a leaked draft of which finds the former foreign policy hawk writing that Trump wanted to withhold military aid from Ukraine until the country committed to launching a spurious investigation into his domestic Democratic rival Joe Biden.
The revelation clouded White House hopes for a swift end to the impeachment trial, as Democrats renewed their demands for new witnesses and some Republicans expressed fresh openness to the idea. It also distracted from hours of arguments Monday from Trump's lawyers, who declared anew that no witness has testified to direct knowledge that Trump's delivery of aid was contingent on investigations into Democrats. Bolton appears poised to say exactly that if summoned by the Senate.
"We deal with transcript evidence, we deal with publicly available information," attorney Jay Sekulow said on Monday. "We do not deal with speculation."
Sekulow's colleagues, including high-profile lawyers Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz, launched a historical, legal and political attack on the entire impeachment process. They said there was no basis to remove Trump from office, defended his actions as appropriate and assailed Biden, who is campaigning for the Democratic nomination to oppose Trump in November.
Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi devoted her presentation to the Bidens, particularly Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukraine gas company at the same time his father was leading the Obama administration's diplomatic dealings with Kiev. The legal team argued that Trump had legitimate reasons to be suspicious of the younger Biden's business dealings and concerned about corruption in Ukraine and that, in any event, he ultimately released the aid without Ukraine committing to investigations the president wanted.
Her colleague, Eric Herschmann, even called for the impeachment of Obama for good measure.
Starr, whose independent counsel investigation into Bill Clinton resulted in his impeachment, bemoaned what he said was an "age of impeachment." Impeachment, he said, requires an actual crime and a "genuine national consensus" that the president must go. Neither exists here, Starr said.
"It's filled with acrimony and it divides the country like nothing else," Starr said of impeachment. "Those of us who lived through the Clinton impeachment understand that in a deep and personal way."
Dershowitz, the final speaker of the evening, argued that impeachable offenses require criminal-like conduct - a view largely rejected by legal scholars. He said "nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offence."
"Purely non-criminal conduct, including abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, are outside the range of impeachable offenses," Dershowitz said.
Elizabeth Warren, a presidential campaigner like Biden but also a Senate juror, told reporters she found Dershowitz's arguments "nonsensical."
"His characterisation of the law simply is unsupported. He is a criminal law professor who stood in the well of the Senate and talked about how law never inquires into intent and that we should not be using the president's intent as part of understanding impeachment," the Massachusetts senator told reporters.
Fellow Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York felt similarly about Starr's performance. “I thought it was an absurd argument and quite rich coming from Ken Starr,” she said.
“It was really incredibly surreal to see him talking about impeachment as something that should be done with solemnity and restraint,” agreed Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
“For a man who spent millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to come up with, ‘Oh, my God, the president has to be impeached because of sex’ during the Clinton time, he's probably not a person who should talk,” commented Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
Here's John T Bennett on the day's events in Washington.
Trump defence praises Rudy Giuliani, calls him 'that shiny object meant to distract you'
Among the weirder arguments made yesterday was this from lawyer Jane Raskin, who heaped lavish praise on the president's colourful personal attorney - who has routinely proved himself a loose cannon and a liability in his appearances on Fox - and said he has unfairly been made the target of Democratic attacks as cover for the "holes in their case".
Here's John T Bennett again on "America's mayor", who has frittered away the good will many felt towards him by reinventing himself as a swivel-eyed, motormouth conspiracy theorist under Trump.
President lashes out at CNN anchor for laughing at him on air
While all that was going on, Trump meanwhile took out his frustration on Twitter, calling CNN anchor Don Lemon “the dumbest man on television” for laughing at him on air, as further damaging revelations emerged from the leaked draft of ex-national security’s adviser John Bolton’s new memoir.
He also, very strangely, retweeted five-year-old praise from Washington Times pundit Charlie Hurt (presumably having found the tweet from 17 June 2015 pinned to the top of his profile page).
The rest of Trump's Twitter output was the usual sewage dump of partisan rhetoric from Republican senators, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Jack Posobiec and ex-NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch.
John Bolton expressed Trump favours concern to attorney general William Barr
The latest Bolton bombshell dropped by The New York Times is that the former national security adviser to the president reported his fears that Trump was in the habit of dishing out personal favours to the autocratic leaders of countries like China and Turkey to attorney general Bill Barr.
According to The NYT, Bolton does not specify the precise nature of the favours offered to Xi Jinping and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his forthcoming book, The Room Where It Happened (already available for pre-order on Amazon) but Barr apparently admitted the matter was indeed cause for concern.
Republican congressman and Trump loyalist Mark Meadows yesterday accused Simon & Schuster, the publishers of the forthcoming book, of leaking it deliberately, an accusation they deny, with Bolton lawyer Charles Cooper countering that it is the White House's "corrupted" review process that is at fault.
More interestingly, another Trump die-hard, Lindsey Graham, expressed an interest in getting his hands on the draft: "I think what we have to do here is evaluate the manuscript... I want to know what's in the manuscript," the South Carolina senator said on the same day he cancelled a press conference with colleagues to digest the news.
Yesterday's events appeared to send shockwaves through the GOP, with several possible Republican rebels signalling they were preferred to vote in favour of hearing new witnesses at the Senate trial in light of the evidence.
"John Bolton's relevance to our decision has become increasingly clear," Utah's Mitt Romney told reporters.
At a private GOP lunch, the former presidential candidate reportedly made the same case for calling Bolton to his peers.
Susan Collins of Maine likewise said she has always wanted "the opportunity for witnesses" and the development "strengthens the case."
Senators Lamar Alexander and Lisa Murkowski, two other potential swing votes, were more tight-lipped, however.
“Well, I read it. I've said before I was curious what Ambassador Bolton might have to say, and I'm still curious,” Murkowski commented.
Other Republicans, including Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, said if the ex-aide is called, they will demand reciprocity to hear from at least one of their ideal witnesses, perhaps Hunter Biden.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell meanwhile claimed not to be worried by the Bolton book. His message at the same lunch Romney spoke at was, according to Indiana GOP senator Mike Braun: "Take a deep breath, and let's take one step at a time."
Fox hosts spars with pundit on impeachment: 'Get your facts straight!'
Senate Republicans are not the only ones the current tensions in DC are getting to.
Yesterday say an ugly exchange on Fox between Chris Wallace and pundit Katie Pavlich, with the normally-phlegmatic anchor correcting the panellist on impeachment precedent and telling her she was "just wrong".
On the same channel later that evening, Florida congressman Matt Gaetz suggested Adam Schiff should be removed from the trusted Gang of Eight...
...and Trump pal Lou Dobbs went off the deep end on Bolton:
Alex Woodward has this report.
Trump defence raises spectre of Obama-era quid pro quo controversy
As Chris Cuomo pointed out on his CNN show last night, there were plenty of holes to be picked in the arguments made by Trump's legal defence in the Senate...
...but Eric Herschmann's complaint that Barack Obama also engaged in a quid pro quo in 2012 - that Republicans at the time complained constituted grounds for impeachment - was not entirely without substance.
During a meeting with Dmitri Medvedev at a Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, on 26 March 2012, Obama pledged to the outgoing Russian president and Putin-proxy that if Moscow gave him “space” (i.e. refrained from aggressions towards its neighbouring states), he would have greater “flexibility” after that year's presidential election regarding granting concessions on missile defence shields in Europe.
Here's Justin Lee with a reminder of the details for Indy Voices.
Lawyers who know Trump's legal team on what they really think of them
For Indy Voices, Andrew Feinberg has this insight from DC on how the president's defenders are viewed by their peers.
"They have zero credibility at this point," says Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman.
Mike Pompeo heads to Kiev, days after saying ‘Americans couldn’t f*****g care about Ukraine’
Ollie Carroll has this analysis of Trump's secretary of state's extremely ill-timed visit to Eastern Europe.
NPR reporter barred from Pompeo trip after tense interview
This administration is nothing if not petulant and, as sure as night follows day, journalist Michele Kelemen has been barred from following the secretary of state to Kiev because she works for the same organisation he fell out with so spectacularly over the weekend.
Kate Ng has this report.
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