WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers are refuting the case brought by the House’s impeachment administrators as they make their case on the fourth day of his trial.
“The impeachment article now before this Senate is an unjust and blatantly unconstitutional act of political revenge,” lawyer Michael van der Veen told the House in his opening speech.
“This terrible abuse of the Constitution only divides our country even further when we should try to unite around common priorities,” he continued.
“Like any other politically motivated witch hunt that the Left has been involved in over the past four years, this impeachment is completely divorced from the facts,” said van der Veen, before making a brutal montage of Democratic lawmakers contesting Trump’s victory in high school in 2016.
He argues that impeachment “poses a serious threat to freedom of expression for political leaders of both parties, at all levels”.
“The Senate must be extremely careful with the precedent that this case will set,” said Van Der Veen.
The former president’s defense team has 16 hours to present his case, but the impeachment’s chief lawyer, David Shoen, said he would probably use just three to four hours to present his arguments.
This means that a vote on the ex-president’s sentencing or acquittal could take place as early as Saturday night, if the chamber moves forward with the question and answer section on Friday.
Many Republican lawmakers were unmoved by the two days of arguments put forward by House promoters, which relied on dramatic and unpublished images to show how close the protesters came to lawmakers when they invaded the Capitol on January 6.
Republican Party senators said that impeachment administrators failed to persuade them to condemn Trump on the charge that he incited the insurrection, suggesting that Democrats will almost certainly not get the 67 votes they need to convict.
The president’s legal team must argue that Trump is innocent of the charge of inciting insurrection and that Democrats stood still while some of their own leaders called for violence against conservatives during the Trump administration and during last summer’s riots.
“I think you will at least be moved by what you see and have a much better picture of what is going on,” Schoen told Fox News in a preview of his arguments, adding that he would expose the “hypocrisy” of impeachment administrators.
“Everyone in that room and in the House will be in bad shape,” he continued. “Our politicians will be in bad shape if that happens and that is very unfortunate.”
If the defense closes the case by Friday afternoon, the trial will move to four hours of questions from senators before a four-hour debate on calling witnesses.
Trump declined the invitation to testify and no other witnesses were called. The camera will then hear two hours of final arguments from each side.
Forty-five Republican senators voted last month that the impeachment of a former president is unconstitutional, with only one Republican changing positions since the trial began.
Democrats need 17 Republicans to cross the aisle and vote with them for Trump’s impeachment to obtain the two-thirds majority needed to convict, but it seems almost certain that the former president will be acquitted a second time.