White House urges swift Senate acquittal of Trump in 'rigged' impeachment

The legal team, led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone, wrote that Trump "did absolutely nothing wrong" as it accused the House Democrats who impeached the president of attempting to overturn the results of the 2016 election and "to interfere in the 2020 election."

"The only threat to the Constitution that House Democrats have brought to light is their own degradation of the impeachment process and trampling of the separation of powers," Trump's lawyers wrote in the 171-page legal brief filed Monday. "Their fixation on damaging the President has trivialized the momentous act of impeachment, debased the standards of impeachable conduct, and perverted the power of impeachment by turning it into a partisan, election-year political tool." 

The administration lays out two main points as it seeks a quick acquittal for Trump: that the articles of impeachment are "deficient" because they don't involve any violations of law, and that the House's charge of obstruction of Congress will damage the constitutional separation of powers. 

House Democrats - in a separate filing that was also due Monday - disputed the White House's argument, asserting that abusing the powers of his presidency was an impeachable offense and that Trump was the "Framers' worst nightmare come to life."

But the White House's legal brief submitted to the Senate - offering the first detailed glimpse into its defense against the two impeachment charges - was adamant that Trump did nothing wrong, deploying a legalese version of the scorched-earth rhetoric commonly deployed in the president's Twitter feed.

"This was not a search for the truth," said a person working with the president's legal team, who spoke with reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of the brief's filing on Monday. The White House believes that "this entire impeachment charade really has been illegitimate from the start."

In its own, 111-page brief filed Saturday, the House's seven impeachment managers laid out the case against Trump they will present to senators later this week, arguing that the president's conduct posed a national security threat and that he obstructed congressional efforts to obtain testimony and documents about his dealings toward Ukraine. 

The House's legal brief reiterated many of the findings and arguments that Democrats have laid out for months: that Trump withheld nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine and a coveted White House meeting with its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, to pressure the country into conducting investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

The president's lawyers argued in their filing, however, that House Democrats had no evidence to back up their accusation that Trump conditioned the aid and the White House visit on an investigation into a political rival. 

The attorneys also defended Trump's conduct, saying a July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky that is at the heart of the House's impeachment case was "perfectly appropriate" and that the Ukrainian leader has not indicated any impropriety with the conversation.

The lawyers pointed to a rough transcript released of the call as proof that Trump did not seek a quid pro quo in his request for the probe of the Bidens and of a debunked theory alleging Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.

In the call, Trump told Zelensky that "I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it." Those favors do not involve Trump's personal interests, argued the White House lawyers, who added: "The President cannot be removed from office because House Democrats deliberately misconstrue one of his commonly used phrases."

That transcript of the call, Trump's lawyers also said, shows that the president was speaking about issues of burden-sharing among European nations as well as corruption - two foreign policy issues that not only were in his purview as commander in chief but reflected his "long-standing concerns" about foreign aid.

The lawyers said it would have been "appropriate" and "entirely proper" for Trump to ask Zelensky about those issues, including about Hunter Biden, who served on the board of Burisma, Ukraine's largest private gas company, whose owner came under scrutiny by Ukrainian prosecutors for possible abuse of power and unlawful enrichment. Biden was not accused of any wrongdoing.

In response to the White House's argument that there was no underlying crime, Democrats are likely to cite an opinion issued after Trump's impeachment from the Government Accountability Office that the administration's withholding of aid was a violation of law. Trump's legal team is expected to argue that senators must focus solely on the information relied upon by the House in its Dec. 18 vote to impeach the president.

As for the obstruction of Congress charge, the president's legal team called it "frivolous and dangerous" because Trump had the right to assert certain executive branch privileges.

"Accepting that unprecedented approach (from Democrats) would fundamentally damage the separation of powers by making the House itself the sole judge of its authority," the lawyers wrote in the brief. "It would permit Congress to threaten every President with impeachment merely for protecting the prerogatives of the Presidency."

The filing came as the House's designated impeachment managers conducted final preparations ahead of the trial proceedings that will begin Tuesday.

Earlier on Monday, the seven Democratic managers walked in procession, with their staff following behind, from the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to the Senate chamber a few minutes after 11 a.m. Reporters were not allowed to view the walk-through, as the doors to the third-floor galleries above the Senate chamber were locked, and aides said the lawmakers would not discuss the visit.

Upon leaving, the managers slipped into a Rules Committee room near Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer's, D-N.Y., office. The area appears to be their workspace for the duration of the trial, and was outfitted with two long tables - along which there are several computers set up - as well as a large elevated television screen. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., was not present for the managers' meeting or the walk-through, though several of his staff were there.