Trump’s Defense Team Wrap Up Opening Arguments
Today should be a quick day.
President Donald Trump’s defense team wrapped up their opening arguments in his impeachment trial in front of the Senate.
Day Eight
White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump’s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow will speak today. Each speech should only last 45 minutes.
This means the day will end pretty quickly.
ACKSHUALLY, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said today could last for several hours. Chief Justice John Roberts told Trump’s defense team still had a little over 15 hours to present their opening arguments.
Chatter on the Hill this morning centered around Bolton’s revelations in a manuscript of his upcoming book. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) suggested senators read the manuscript in a classified setting.
Of course Minority Leader Chuck Schumer laughed off that idea. He just wants Bolton to testify.
Sen. Lindsey Graham snapped back, reminding the Democrats of the witnesses the Republicans will call if the Senate passes a motion.
Lawyer Jay Sekulow said that the allegations in Bolton’s book are inadmissible:
“I want to be clear on this, because there’s a lot of speculation out there with regard to what John Bolton has said,” Mr. Sekulow said. He repeated President Trump’s denial that he “NEVER” told Mr. Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
“In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination,” Mr. Sekulow said. “If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book.
“Responding to an unpublished manuscript that maybe some reporters have an idea of maybe what it says … I don’t know what you’d call that, I’d call it inadmissible. That’s what it is,” Mr. Sekulow said. Impeachment, he added, “is not a game of leaks and unsourced manuscripts. That is politics, unfortunately.”
Mr. Sekulow argued that impeachment was only the latest effort to take down the president, citing the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into his campaign’s ties with Russia and former special counsel Robert Mueller’s ensuing two-year probe.
“Put yourselves in the shoes of not just this president, of any president that would have been under this type of attack,” Mr. Sekulow said. “You can’t view this case in a vacuum.”
Jay Sekulow: “You cannot impeach a president on an unsourced allegation.”
Watch full video here: https://t.co/nj5srbfURf pic.twitter.com/tDtSXpUryF
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 28, 2020
The day did not last very long even though McConnell said it would. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone admitted he “had kind of a lengthy presentation prepared,” but decided to settle on a few points.
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone: “It is time for this to end, here and now. We urge the Senate to reject these articles of impeachment for all of the reasons we have given you.”
Watch full video here: https://t.co/nj5srbfURf pic.twitter.com/IIMTSI5jMx
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 28, 2020
But he reminded the Senate that 2020 is an election year:
“Why not trust the American people with this decision. Why tear up their ballots, why tear up every ballot across this country. You can’t do that. You know you can’t do that. So I ask you to defend our constitution, to defend fundamental fairness, to defend basic due process rights, but most importantly — most importantly, to respect and defend the sacred right of every American to vote and to choose their president. The election is only months away.”
Recap
Alan Dershowitz ended Monday night’s session addressing revelations from a book by former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Alan Dershowitz: “Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense. That is clear from the history. That is clear from the language of the Constitution.” pic.twitter.com/clD3nsCaeb
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 28, 2020
Sen. Angus King (I-ME) believes that Bolton’s revelations have propelled the vote for witnesses to over 51:
“I’m already hearing a number of Republicans who are moving toward voting to at least hear from John Bolton, if not other witnesses,” he said. “I think there’ll be more,” said King, referring to the four GOP votes Democrats need to call Bolton. “My bold prediction will be five or 10.”
47 senators caucus with the Democrats. They need four Republican senators to vote for a motion to call witnesses and present new evidence.
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Comments
Mitch has lost his Senate if he calls Bolton, the gates of hell will open, the Dems will block the witnesses the Republicans really want
Why do Republicans have no balls?
Ultimately depends on what Bolton actually says. Right now the only thing we’ve got is what a New York Times anonymous source says, and we should all remember how their anonymous sources have turned out so far. Bolton himself is likely under an NDA from the publisher, and neither the publisher nor their lawyer has confirmed or denied the rumor, just said the equivalent of ‘buy the book to see what’s in it’.
They’ve got no incentive to resolve any of this before the pre-orders have shipped.
Because there are too many RINOs that get into office mouthing words they think people want to hear and never, EVER delivering on a single one of them.
I don’t think McConnell will lose if he calls Bolton.
I think he will lose the Senate if he calls ONLY Bolton. If Bolton gets called at a minimum they have to call the whisteblower, that fat turd Vindman, and Hunter Biden.
And none of this ‘we don’t have the votes’ bullshit. Call a vote and put the RINOs on record.
Either they call no witnesses or they call ALL witnesses.
Because the RINO’s are prissy little bitches that will side with their Democrat colleagues at every opportunity.
Ace called this last week, something will come along to provide the cover the botched needed to side with Democrats and low and behold…there it is right on time and to plan!
What Romney and co need to understand is that their GOP is dead. Killed Trump and the revelation that a politician actually working for peoples benefit can happen.
They need to get on board or there will be hell to pay for their betrayal.
So pathetic. PDJT is the only man in control. The rest of the GOP is acting like the usual clueless, gutless hacks we are trying to boot out.
Mcconnell is old, old news.
Trump is all in. All the others are hedging.
It’s like the chicken and the pig. The chicken has an interest in your breakfast, but the pig is fully committed. Something that has remained (not too far) in the background over the past three years is the fact that the GOP *is* the party of stupid.
If they call witnesses [I don’t think they will], run this thing out for 4-months. Annoy the hell out of the American voter beyond belief, and keep Gray Beaver and Crazy Bernie off the campaign trail until summer. Do the dems really want to play that game? If the dems want to play, Turtle better play his best game of hardball.
For starters, I’d subpoena 0bummer. What did he know, and when did he know it? In reality, the dems are not suicidal and they don’t want witnesses …. they just want the Republicans to refuse witnesses so they can make political theater out of it.
See if you can find the errors in this AP story ..
https://apnews.com/c565f440467e4fd5cd6a11d7c8abc842