Posted on 01/28/2020 3:16:08 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
President Donald Trump’s legal team is raising a broad-based attack on the impeachment case against him even as it mostly brushes past allegations in a new book that could undercut a key defense argument at his Senate trial.
Former national security adviser John Bolton writes in a manuscript that Trump wanted to withhold military aid from Ukraine until it committed to helping with investigations into Democratic rival Joe Biden. That assertion matters because Trump and his lawyers have repeatedly insisted that he never tied the suspension of security aid to political investigations.
The revelation clouded White House hopes for a swift end to the impeachment trial, as Democrats demanded witnesses and some Republicans expressed 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 appeared 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. “We do not deal with speculation.”
Trump has sought, without providing evidence, to implicate the Bidens in the kind of corruption that has long plagued Ukraine. Though anti-corruption advocates have raised concerns, there has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either the former vice president or his son.
Elizabeth Warren, a presidential campaigner like Biden but also a Senate juror, told reporters she found Dershowitz’s arguments “nonsensical.”
Even as defense lawyers laid out their case as planned, it was clear Bolton’s book had scrambled the debate over whether to seek witnesses. Trump’s legal team has rejected Bolton’s account, and Trump himself denied it.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Does anyone trust ABC News?
“No evidence of wrong doing by the Bidens” Ummmm those paychecks Hunter was cashing????
Once this is all over and President Trump is acquitted, there needs to some serious draining of the swamp. The next election should be a referendum on the swamp, followed by prosecutions.
If they didnt require witnesses in the Clinton impeachment why are you so so amenable to witnesses now? Why are you so so happy to aid and abet the democrats in their quest to continue with a constitutionally incoherent charade to degrade the character of the President? The investigation is over the Senate’s job is to acquit or convict.
The swamp appears to be more like an ocean. The problem is bigger than imagined. For example, to know there are people with the privilege to serve in the WH are still actively working against the POTUS, instead of doing the honorable thing and resign or seek employment elsewhere ... it indicates how deeply rooted the corruption is. Because the media is aligned with one party, there is no fear among the corrupt of being exposed and punished, least in the public arena.
No witnesses required when no crime has been made.
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