WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump's legal team began its defense arguments Saturday morning in the ongoing impeachment trial, offering an overview of their case for acquittal after three days of arguments from House Democrats advocating for his removal from office.
After three days of lengthy presentations from the House, Trump's lawyers are expected to speak for a few hours Saturday before adjourning until Monday, when they plan to make a more in-depth case.
Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, began his remarks on the Senate floor by making it clear that Trump's defense does not plan to utilize all 24 hours allotted for each side to deliver its argument.
"You will find that the president did actually nothing wrong," Cipollone said, framing the Democratic case as driven by politics. "They're asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot in an election that's occurring in approximately nine months."
Just as the trial got underway, Trump tweeted urging people to tune in on television to watch as his attorneys began their case.
Democrats, who spent three days offering extensive arguments, buttressed by video clips of sworn testimony and PowerPoint slides, Cipollone said, had offered "no evidence" to support such an action.
"We can talk about the process, we will talk about the law, but today we are going to confront them on the merits of their argument, how they have the burden of proof and they have not come close to meeting it." Cipollone said.
Jay A. Sekulow, the president's private counsel, along with several Republican lawmakers, also made it clear in the trial's opening days that the president's defense case would, at least to some extent, amount to an offensive against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter _ the sort of public inquisition of a potential 2020 rival that he had been seeking from Ukraine.
The House voted along party lines in December to impeach Trump for abusing his office by withholding $391 million in military aid to Ukraine for more than two months as part of a pressure campaign to force the country's new president into announcing a corruption investigation of Biden.
Democrats approved a second article of impeachment for obstruction of Congress after the president blocked several witnesses from testifying during the House inquiry and refused to turn over documents that had been subpoenaed.
The president's attorneys and Republicans have argued that Trump has the right to claim executive privilege in defying Congress's requests.
Prior to Saturday morning's opening gavel, House Democrats submitted a 25,578-page impeachment record, wheeling carts loaded down with containers of thick binders to the Senate. And one Democratic aide working on the trial told reporters that they expected a "masterclass ... in distraction and distortion of truth" as Trump's attorneys begin their case.
"You can expect a lot of lies," the aide said.
In his closing argument Friday night, the lead impeachment manager from the House, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., sought to deflate a number of likely defense arguments in advance, given that the trial's format allows both sides 24 hours to make their case but no opportunity for Democrats, who went first, to offer an official rebuttal.
The Trump lawyers' focus on the Bidens, Schiff argued, is a smokescreen, sending a message of "please do not consider what the president did."
"If they couldn't get Ukraine to do it," he continued, referring to an investigation of the Bidens, "they want to use the trial to do it instead."
Republicans left the chamber Friday night bristling over Schiff's quotation of a news report that cited an anonymous source who suggested that the White House had informed GOP lawmakers that they'd get their "head on a pike" if they broke ranks and voted with Democrats during the impeachment trial.
Some lawmakers, including Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, audibly reacted on the Senate floor, telling Schiff that the report wasn't true. After the Senate adjourned, several raced to the microphones near the Senate subway to grouse to reporters. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said that he was "visibly upset."
