GOP senators upset by Schiff remark, Dems claim ‘diversion’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans said lead impeachment prosecutor Adam Schiff insulted them during the trial by repeating an anonymously sourced report that the White House had threatened to punish Republicans who voted against President Donald Trump.

Schiff, who delivered closing arguments for the prosecution on Friday evening, was holding Republican senators rapt as he called for removing Trump from office for abusing his power and obstructing Congress. Doing anything else, he argued, would be to let the president bully Senate Republicans into ignoring his pressure on Ukraine for political help.

“CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that key senators were warned, ‘Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike.’ I don’t know if that’s true,” Schiff said.

After that remark, the generally respectful mood in the Senate changed. Republicans across their side of the chamber groaned, gasped and said, “That’s not true.” One of those key moderate Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, looked directly at Schiff, shook her head and said, “Not true.”

Hearing the Republican protests about the reference to the report, and with an eye toward Collins, Schiff paused and said: “I hope it’s not true. I hope it’s not true.”

Collins in a statement said she knows of “no Republican senator who has been threatened in any way by anyone in the administration.”

Democrats, meanwhile, gave Schiff’s closing speech rave reviews and dismissed the Republican outrage as an attempt to distract from the facts of the case against the president.

“They’re always looking for a diversion,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on MSNBC.

And Schiff said Saturday of the criticism: “If the worst they could point to is that I referred to a public report by CBS, that’s pretty thin gruel.”

Collins’s views are being closely watched because Democrats need support from at least four Republicans to win a vote on calling witnesses. She is one of the few Republican senators who has expressed an openness to calling witnesses in the impeachment trial.

She had been listening intently to Schiff’s presentation and writing down some of his points. When he made the “pike” comment, she looked directly at Schiff and slowly and repeatedly shook her head back and forth. When he finished his speech and the trial adjourned, GOP Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and John Barrasso of Wyoming made a beeline for her seat. Collins again shook her head and said, “No.”

Another moderate who could be a key vote on witnesses, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said Schiff’s invocation of the report “was unnecessary.”

“That’s when he lost me” with his speech, Murkowski said, according to her spokeswoman.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told reporters that the CBS report is “completely, totally false.”

“None of us have been told that,” he added. “That’s insulting and demeaning to everyone to say that we somehow live in fear and that the president has threatened all of us.″

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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

Defense resumes in key impeachment week; Dems seek witnesses

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial enters a pivotal week as his defense team resumes its case and senators face a critical vote on whether to hear witnesses or proceed directly to a vote that is widely expected to end in his acquittal. The articles of impeachment charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Those decisions on witnesses may be complicated by reports that Trump said he wanted to maintain a freeze on military assistance to Ukraine until it aided political investigations into his Democratic rivals, That’s from former national security adviser John Bolton in a draft of his forthcoming book. The report by The New York Times was later confirmed by The Associated Press. The revelation challenges the defense offered up by Trump and his attorneys in his impeachment trial.

The Capitol Hill maneuvering will be complemented by high-stakes efforts on both sides of the aisle to claim political advantage from the proceedings as the presidential nominating season kicks off in Iowa on Feb. 3.

More on impeachment

What to watch as the Senate impeachment trial resumes Monday at 1 p.m. EST:

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STAR TURN IN DEFENSE

After a two-hour opening argument Saturday, Trump’s defense team will lay out its case in depth beginning Monday. White House counsel Pat Cipollone said Trump’s lawyers don’t expect to take the full 24 hours allotted to them, but there will be arguments from some familiar faces. 

Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, former independent counsel Ken Starr and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi will speak on specific topics.

Dershowitz said Sunday he would argue that the charges against Trump are too minor to warrant the president’s removal from office under the Constitution. “Even if true, they did not allege impeachable offenses,” Dershowitz told “Fox News Sunday.”

The Trump team has also teased the notion that it would draw attention to Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukraine gas company Burisma, while the elder Biden was vice president. An extended focus on Joe Biden, one of the leading Democratic presidential contenders, could mean blowback from even some of the GOP members of the Senate.

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QUESTION TIME

Once Trump’s team concludes, senators will have 16 hours to ask questions of both the House impeachment prosecutors and the president’s legal team. Their questions must be in writing.

Chief Justice John Roberts will read the questions aloud. He is expected to alternate between both sides of the aisle. Many senators have been talking copious notes throughout the trial in preparation for the question-and-answer time.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told reporters Saturday that Republicans expected to get together on Monday to start formulating a list of questions. “We will meet as a conference and decide what questions we want to pose, what the order may be of those of those questions,” he said.

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WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY

Under the Senate rules passed last week, senators will get another chance to vote whether to consider new witnesses and evidence after the Q&A time is elapsed. Four Republicans would have to break ranks to join Democrats in the GOP-controlled Senate to extend the trial for an undetermined amount of time.

If that happens, expect a bitter fight over which witnesses might be called and which documents might be subpoenaed. Democrats have called for testimony from Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, and his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. An attempt to call either probably would lead to a showdown with the White House, which claims both men have “absolute immunity” from being called to testify before the Senate, even in an impeachment trial. Still, Bolton has said he would appear if issued a subpoena by the Senate.

While Republicans have hoped for a speedy trial, Trump has called for the testimony of the Bidens and the intelligence community whistleblower whose summer complaint about Trump’s July telephone call with Ukraine’s leader instigated the impeachment inquiry.

But some Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have expressed resistance to calling those witnesses.

If the vote fails, the Senate could move swiftly to its vote on whether to remove or acquit Trump, giving the president the result he’s been looking for as soon as the end of the week.

Senate rules also call for four hours of deliberations before voting. Since senators are required to sit silently during the trial, expect a closed session where they can deliberate in private.

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A NEW TAPE

Trump’s lawyers argued Saturday that no one knows what Trump’s motives were on holding up military assistance to Ukraine. A recording obtained by The Associated Press hours later suggests the president well understood that assistance was a point of leverage over Ukraine.

The recording is of 2018 meeting at the Trump Hotel in Washington that Trump had with donors. including two now-indicted associates of his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. The audio portion includes Trump inquiring about Ukraine, “How long would they last in a fight with Russia?” He later calls for the firing of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.

The recording contradicts the president’s statements that he didn’t know the Giuliani associations, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. They are key figures in the investigation who were indicted last year on campaign finance charges.

If new evidence and witnesses are allowed, the recording could take center stage in the Senate proceedings.

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THE POLITICS

The trial is resuming with one week to go until the Iowa caucuses, and is again keeping four Democratic contenders — Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bennet and Amy Klobuchar — in Washington instead of campaigning at a critical point in the race.

While they are trapped in Washington, Trump will venture outside the capital as he seeks both to exert political retribution on Democrats who impeached him and reward a party-switching lawmaker who backed him in the House.

Trump will hold a rally Tuesday in New Jersey to repay the favor to Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who became a Republican last month after voting against the articles of impeachment as a Democrat. And Trump is set to appear in Iowa on Thursday, days before the caucuses.

Meanwhile, Trump is already looking ahead to his likely acquittal, whenever it may come, promising that Democrats will face consequences for trying to remove him from office. “Shifty Adam Schiff is a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and probably a very sick man,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “He has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!”

Schiff, D-Calif., is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the lead impeachment manager. Asked on NBC’s ``Meet the Press″ whether he viewed the tweet as a threat, Schiff replied, “I think it’s intended to be.″

___

NADLER ABSENT

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, one of the House managers for the Senate trial, will miss Monday’s proceedings because of his wife’s illness.

In a statement, the New York Democrat said he would be in New York that day to discuss with doctors his wife’s ongoing treatment for pancreatic cancer. As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Nadler has been a key member of the Democratic team investigating and prosecuting the case against the president.

—-

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Eric Tucker, Laurie Kellman and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

Reporter's Notebook: What Saturday's impeachment session could mean for future of Trump trial

If you seem fatigued, exhausted, put-off, or otherwise sapped by the Senate’s impeachment trial of President Trump, you could thank Warren Hastings.
Hastings was a British official who served as the Crown’s governor-general in Bengal, India. The British Parliament was attempting to impeach Hastings in the late 1780s. That’s right around the same time the Founders convened the Constitutional Convention in the United States. Word of Hastings’s impeachment trial even made the papers in the incipient, young nation. It helped form debate and the final verbiage in the American Constitution about impeachment.
The British Parliament tried to impeach Hastings over a seven-year period stretching from 1788 to 1795. The trial dragged on for so long that a third of the House of Lords’ membership hearing the case died before it was over. Parliament eventually acquitted Hastings.
President Trump’s trial won’t run that long here – although some would say it’s felt like seven years. And, the senators hearing the case aren’t hoping they meet the same demise as those listening to Hastings’ case in the House of Lords.

In his opening remarks at the trial Saturday as the president’s lawyers began their defense, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone took a veiled swipe at the exhaustive 24 hours of arguments presented to the Senate by the House impeachment managers.
“We are going to be very respectful of your time,” Cipollone told the senators. “We anticipate going about two to three hours at most and to (have) you be out of here by 1:00 at the latest.”

A spontaneous, collective roar seemingly nearly lifted the dome off the Capitol – regardless of anyone’s position on impeachment. Senate aides, U.S. Capitol Police and members of the media likely were joining in the euphoria.
All things are relative. Those working on the impeachment trial were practically ebullient that lead impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., concluded the House’s presentation just before 9 p.m. Friday night. That sure beat Tuesday’s session, which stretched until 1:50 Wednesday morning.
This was the first Saturday session in Trump’s impeachment trial. Senate impeachment Rule III dictated that the trial needed to run six days a week, Saturdays included. The Senate sat for three Saturdays during then-President Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999.
Remarkably, Cipollone and his team didn’t burn three hours of time on Saturday. They didn’t even incinerate two hours. The president’s defense team clocked in at one hour and 50 minutes.
Brevity was the theme – perhaps to appeal to weary senators, utterly whipped by events of the past week.
“I’m ecstatic that it was only two hours,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., after the trial adjourned for the day.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., bragged that the president’s defense team needed less than two hours on the floor, yet they “annihilated three days of work by Adam Schiff.” Meadows characterized the approach as “surgical.”
Trump’s defense team aimed to contrast its more efficient approach with what some analysts regarded as the talkativeness of the impeachment managers.
“Very few souls are saved after the first 20 minutes of a sermon,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., noted that a demonstrator somehow managed to bolt into the chamber on Wednesday night, shouting about abortion and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Officials from the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Office shoved the man out of the chamber. U.S. Capitol Police charged the suspect.
“I’m thinking about possibly doing the same thing so the sergeant-at-arms will take me out also,” Scott said.
Graham complained that the House impeachment managers played some of the video clips “seven times.” He added that after hearing the same points “four times, that’s about twice too much.” But generally, Graham was complimentary of the Democrats.
“They did a good job of taking bits and pieces of the evidence and creating a quilt,” he said.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, didn’t mind hearing the repetition, even though he said he spotted Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney on the video screen so many times. “I feel like I’m having dinner with him.”
“Sometimes guys might catch it the first time,” King said, suggesting that the Democrats employed an “old southern, preacher rule of public speaking.”
King said the practice went like this: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. And then, tell them what you told them,” he said. “Repetition is a part of persuasion.”
It’s just like hearing a commercial on the radio over and over again for a plumber or heating and air conditioning company. Then, when your furnace goes out on a cold February night, whom do you call?
Most Republicans were really just happy to be done with the House impeachment managers. Many fumed that in his closing remarks Thursday night, Schiff cited a CBS News report suggesting the president wanted the heads of Republicans who opposed him “on a pike.”
“Adam Schiff’s best two hours were the first two, and his worst ten minutes were the last ten,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., complained. “He left a bad mark going out the door.”
But, it’s not like the Democrats’ arguments were winning over Republicans anyway, no matter how comprehensive or compelling their points may have been. It seemed many Republicans simply were not buying the arguments and evidence presented by the Democrats. Perhaps that’s why the president’s defense team’s presentation was so condensed.
It wasn’t just that it was Saturday and folks wanted to jet out of Washington. Trump’s counsel argued a compressed case because they didn’t have to do that much persuasion. Senators had made up their minds already.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, asserted his Republican colleagues were fretting about the GOP base if they deviated from the president.
“They don’t want to say things that will anger them,” Brown said. “There is fear in the eyes of Republican senators. They realize the president didn’t tell the truth.”
“I think they’re wrestling with their conscience, which is what they should be doing,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, of Republicans. “My Republican colleagues should be a helluva lot more upset by what the president did, not only to Ukraine, but to our own country by not being good for our word.”
But, those arguments appeared to fall on deaf ears, and after the succinct session Saturday, tribalism kicked in again. Everyone ran to their usual corners.
A team of eight House GOP surrogates headed to a stakeout position, filled with reporters, in the Senate subway station. Schumer and Schiff bolted to the press gallery studio for separate news conferences. Senators who wanted to avoid pesky reporters ran for the exits. Democrats running for president raced to the airport so they could campaign for a day-and-a-half in the snows of Iowa.
There are multiple audiences for this trial: senators, the public, voters in the presidential race, voters in House races and voters in Senate races. Each cohort likely will interpret the trial differently. But, in some ways, this trial faced an audience of one.
“The president was pleased with the presentation. He thought they did an excellent job with rebuttal on the facts,” said one GOP source who spoke with Trump after the trial concluded. “Because of the effective oral arguments, he sees this as a mandate to end the impeachment process expeditiously.”
Votes to call witnesses later this week could certainly elongate the trial. That seemed to be the only unresolved issue. Republicans honed in on the issue of calling the Bidens as witnesses after the House managers cited them 226 times during Thursday’s session.
“That would be like calling Hunter Biden to be a witness in the OJ [Simpson] trial. He doesn’t know anything about it,” King said. “So, the question then would be relevance.”
But, this newfound rocket docket could mean Republicans simply have wanted to wrap things up. Cramer said dithering over witnesses “would open a whole can of worms.”
If things continue at this clip, the Senate could vote to dismiss the case or vote on each article of impeachment by next weekend.
Back in England, there was intense interest in the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings. But, interest started to drop as figures once keyed up about Hastings retreated.
Trump’s trial won’t consume anywhere near the seven years devoted to Hastings tribunal. But, the verdicts from his trial certainly will reverberate for years to come.

Bolton's manuscript leaks as memoir pre-orders begin on Amazon; Trump fires back

Former national security advisor John Bolton's team was under fire from the White House and conservative commentators Sunday night, after a report in The New York Times revealed a bombshell excerpt from Bolton's forthcoming book that could prove pivotal in President Trump's impeachment trial -- just as the Amazon product page for the book went live.
The drama began earlier Sunday when the Times exclusively reported that Bolton's manuscript included a claim that Trump explicitly linked a hold on Ukraine aid to an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden. Trump told Bolton in August, according to a transcript of Bolton's forthcoming book reviewed by the Times, "that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens."
The Times further claimed Bolton had shared a manuscript of his forthcoming book with "close associates" -- prompting Bolton's team to deny the claim, and assert that the National Security Council's [NSC's] review process of pending manuscripts is "corrupted" and prone to leaks.
A "pre-publication review" at the NSC, which functions as the White House's national security forum, is standard for any former government officials who held security clearances and publicly write or speak publicly about their official work. The review typically would focus on ferreting out any classified or sensitive material in advance of publication, and could take from days to months.
Trump fired back on Twitter on Sunday to refute Bolton's claims, saying he "NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens." Trump went on to accuse Bolton of trying to "sell a book," noting that Bolton did not complain publicly or privately about the aid holdup "at the time of his very public termination."
Other conservatives also suggested Sunday evening that Bolton's team may have leaked the information themselves while using the media as unwitting tools to juice their book sales. Online merchants began taking orders for Bolton's book, entitled "The Room Where It Happened," just as the Times' story broke, with a March release date.
"A former advisor to the President and the NY Times turned impeachment hearings into a marketing strategy and there are still people wandering around wondering how we ever ended up with Donald Trump," wrote podcast host Stephen Miller.
"Just like James Comey, John Bolton is trying to get rich off of a lie- and leak-fueled campaign to overturn the 2016 election results," wrote The Federalist's Sean Davis."I suspect it will work out as well as all of Bolton’s other wars."
Davis added, in a post that was retweeted by the president: "John Bolton is running the exact same revenge playbook against Trump that James Comey used. He’s even using the same agent and leaking to the same reporters. All because he’s mad Trump fired him for leaking and trying to start new wars. It’s so boring and predictable. ... If you think anyone other than Bolton’s lawyer, publisher, or agent leaked this to 1) juice sales of his book, and 2) get revenge against Trump for firing Bolton and refusing to start a bunch of new wars, you’re an idiot."
Meanwhile, CNN's Brian Stelter simply noted that Bolton's book was now on sale, with cover art that resembles the Oval Office.
Mused CBS News' "60 Minutes" correspondent John Dickerson, "Those publicists don’t miss a trick."
Sarah Tinsley, a senior adviser to Bolton, told Fox News he had submitted a hard copy draft of his manuscript to the NSC several weeks ago for "pre-publication review," but insisted he had not shared it with anyone else.
And, in a statement obtained by Fox News, Bolton attorney Charles Cooper lamented that the NSC review process had been "corrupted."
He also provided his letter to the White House concerning the manuscript.
"On December 30, 2019, I submitted, on behalf of Ambassador Bolton, a book manuscript to the National Security Council’s Records Management Division for standard prepublication security review for classified information. As explained in my cover letter to Ellen J. Knight, Senior Director of the Records Management Division, we submitted the manuscript notwithstanding our firm belief that the manuscript contained no information that could reasonably be considered classified and on the assurance that the 'process of reviewing submitted materials is restricted to those career government officials and employees regularly charged with responsibility for such reviews' and that the 'contents of Ambassador Bolton’s manuscript will not be reviewed or otherwise disclosed to any persons not regularly involved in that process.'"
Cooper continued: "A copy of my December 30 letter is attached. It is clear, regrettably, from The New York Times article published today that the prepublication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved in reviewing the manuscript."
Bolton's team declined to "speculate" to Fox News as to how a description of his manuscript might have leaked to the Times. Additionally, Bolton's representatives made clear he was not denying the Times' claim concerning the Ukraine aid holdup and the possible investigation of the Bidens.
Bolton resigned last September, and Trump has said he was fired.
At a Fox News Town Hall with Chris Wallace on Sunday in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, Pete Buttigieg joined a chrous of Democrats in calling for Bolton to testify in the wake of the Times' report.
Bolton has said he'd be willing to testify if subpoenaed, and that he has relevant information.
"Just now, we're getting more indications about John Bolton, and what he knew, which is one more reason why, if this is a serious trial, we're going to have the witnesses and evidence," Buttigieg said.
The president has said that Bolton testimony might imperil national security and compromise executive privilege, the longstanding legal principle that generally protects executive branch deliberations from disclosure.
"The problem with John [Bolton] is, it's a national security problem," Trump told Fox News at a recent press conference in Davos, Switzerland. "If you think about it, he knows some of my thoughts, he knows what I think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader and it's not very positive? ... It's going to be very hard, it's going to make the job very hard. He knows other things. I don't know if we left on the best of terms. I would say probably not. So you don't like people testifying when they didn't leave on good terms -- and that was due to me, not due to him."
Trump added: "The way I look at it, I call it national security. For national security reasons. Executive privilege, they say."
Trump's lawyers on Monday are set to resume presenting their defense in the Senate, which will then decide whether to hear additional witnesses by a simple majority vote. At the Town Hall, Buttigieg emphasized that Trump should be removed from office -- a highly unlikely eventuality, given that a two-thirds vote of the GOP-controlled Senate would be necessary.

NPR Fake News Cartoons

Trump lawyers argue Democrats just want to overturn election

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s lawyers plunged into his impeachment trial defense Saturday by accusing Democrats of striving to overturn the 2016 election, arguing that investigations of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine have not been a fact-finding mission but a politically motivated effort to drive him from the White House.

“They’re here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone told senators. “And we can’t allow that to happen.”

The Trump legal team’s arguments in the rare Saturday session were aimed at rebutting allegations that the president abused his power when he asked Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden and then obstructed Congress as it tried to investigate. The lawyers are mounting a wide-ranging, aggressive defense asserting an expansive view of presidential powers and portraying Trump as besieged by political opponents determined to ensure he won’t be reelected this November.

“They’re asking you to tear up all the ballots across this country on your own initiative, take that decision away from the American people,” Cipollone said.

Though Trump is the one on trial, the defense team made clear that it intends to paint the impeachment case as a mere continuation of the investigations that have shadowed the president since before he took office — including one into allegations of Russian election interference on his behalf. Trump attorney Jay Sekulow suggested Democrats were investigating the president over Ukraine simply because they couldn’t bring him down for Russia.

“That — for this,” said Sekulow, holding up a copy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which he accused Democrats of attempting to “relitigate.” That report detailed ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia but did not allege a criminal conspiracy to tip the election.

From the White House, Trump tweeted his response: “Any fair minded person watching the Senate trial today would be able to see how unfairly I have been treated and that this is indeed the totally partisan Impeachment Hoax that EVERYBODY, including the Democrats, truly knows it is.”

His team made only a two-hour presentation, reserving the heart of its case for Monday.

Acquittal appears likely, given that Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and a two-thirds vote would be required for conviction and removal from office. Republican senators already eager to clear Trump said Saturday that the White House presentation had shredded the Democratic case.

Several of the senators shook hands with Trump’s lawyers after their presentation. The visitors galleries were filled, onlookers watching for the historic proceedings and the rare weekend session of Senate.

The Trump attorneys are responding to two articles of impeachment approved last month by the House — one that accuses him of encouraging Ukraine to investigate Biden at the same time the administration withheld military aid from the country, and the other that accuses him of obstructing Congress by directing aides not to testify or produce documents.

Trump’s defense team took center stage following three days of methodical and passionate arguments from Democrats, who wrapped up Friday by warning that Trump will persist in abusing his power and endangering American democracy unless Congress intervenes to remove him before the 2020 election. They also implored Republicans to allow new testimony to be heard before senators render a final verdict.

“Give America a fair trial,” said California Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead Democratic impeachment manager. “She’s worth it.”

In making their case that Trump invited Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election, the seven Democratic prosecutors peppered their arguments with video clips, email correspondence and lessons in American history. At stake, they said, was the security of U.S. elections, America’s place in the world and checks on presidential power

On Saturday morning, House managers made the procession across the Capitol at 9:30 to deliver the 28,578-page record of their case to the Senate.

Republicans accused Democrats of cherrypicking evidence and omitting information favorable to the president, casting in a nefarious light actions that Trump was legitimately empowered to take. They focused particular scorn on Schiff, trying to undercut his credibility.

Schiff later told reporters: “When your client is guilty, when your client is dead to rights, you don’t want to talk about your client, you want to attack the prosecution.”

The Trump team had teased the idea that it would draw attention on Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukraine gas company Burisma, while his father was vice president. But neither Biden was a focus of Saturday arguments.

Instead, Republicans argued that there was no evidence that Trump made the security aid contingent on Ukraine announcing an investigation into the Bidens and that Ukraine didn’t even know that the money had been paused until shortly before it was released.

Trump had reason to be concerned about corruption in Ukraine and the aid was ultimately released, they said.

“Most of the Democratic witnesses have never spoken to the president at all, let alone about Ukraine security assistance,” said deputy White House Counsel Michael Purpura.

Pupura told the senators the July 25 call in which Trump asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the Biden investigation was consistent with the president’s concerns about corruption, though Trump never mentioned that word, according to the rough transcript released by the White House.

Pupura said everyone knows that when Trump asked Zelenskiy to “do us a favor,” he meant the U.S., not himself.

“This entire impeachment process is about the house managers’ insistence that they are able to read everybody’s thoughts,” Sekulow said. “They can read everybody’s intention. Even when the principal speakers, the witnesses themselves, insist that those interpretations are wrong.”

Defense lawyers say Trump was a victim not only of Democratic rage but also of overzealous agents and prosecutors. Sekulow cited mistakes made by the FBI in its surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide in the now-concluded Trump-Russia election investigation, and referred to the multi-million-dollar cost of that probe.

“You cannot simply decide this case in a vacuum,” he said.

One of the president’s lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, is expected to argue next week that an impeachable offense requires criminal-like conduct, even though many legal scholars say that’s not true. Sekulow also said the Bidens would be discussed in the days ahead.

The Senate is heading next week toward a pivotal vote on Democratic demands for testimony from top Trump aides, including acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton, who refused to appear before the House. It would take four Republican senators to join the Democratic minority to seek witnesses, and so far the numbers appear lacking.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican ally of Trump’s, said he thought the legal team had successfully poked holes in the Democrats’ case and that the Democrats had “told a story probably beyond what the market would bear.”

He said he had spoken to Trump two days ago, when he was leaving Davos, Switzerland.

Asked if Trump had any observations on the trial, Graham replied: “Yeah, he hates it.”

___

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Alan Fram, Andrew Taylor, Laurie Kellman, Matthew Daly and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.

AOC bashes ICE, Sanders bashes Trump during Iowa rally

Idiots

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urged supporters of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Saturday night to start "tipping people off" if they see federal immigration authorities taking action against illegal immigrants in their communities.
It was just one of many tips the New York Democrat had for a crowd in Ames, Iowa, as she continued stumping for Sanders ahead of the state's presidential caucuses on Feb. 3.
Unlike a Friday night event in Iowa City, in which Ocasio-Cortez promoted progressive causes like the Green New Deal, government-funded health care and immigration reform -- but never mentioned the name of Sanders, who was absent because of Senate impeachment trial duties in Washington -- the 30-year-old freshman congresswoman on Saturday, with the 78-year-old Sanders now in attendance, reminded the crowd who she supported.
“We need a true Green New Deal in this country," she said. "Sen. Sanders has the largest plan in the field to address the climate crisis. I’m here because we need true immigration justice. And I’m not here to reform some of these systems when we talk about immigration, I’m here because Sen. Sanders has truly committed to breaking up ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Protection)."
As for Sanders himself, the independent U.S. senator from Vermont spent much of his speech in Ames blasting President Trump -- just one week after Trump defended Sanders following an attack by his Democratic progressive rival, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
"What we can agree on is that in our great country, we should not have a president who is a pathological liar," Sanders said. "We should not have a president who is running a corrupt administration. We should not have a president who is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and a religious bigot.”
"We can have our differences of opinion,” Sanders added. “But we do not need somebody like Donald Trump in the White House, who forces parents to turn off the TV when kids are in the room – who is an embarrassment to us all over the world.”
The Vermont progressive also referred to Trump as "the most dangerous president in the modern history of America" and claimed his policies on climate change threaten the entire world.
"Donald Trump is doing many bad things for our country," he said. "In terms of climate change, he is rejecting science. We cannot have a government that rejects science.”
Sanders also echoed Ocasio-Cortez's emphasis on engaging young voters and said increasing voter turnout is the only way to make a lasting impact, that transcends the ballot box.
“If you are tired of student debt -- if you are sick and tired and scared about climate change -- If you are disgusted with racism and sexism… if you believe health care is a human right, you can’t sit it out," he said.
"You can’t complain. You have to be involved. If young people were to vote in Iowa and in this national election at the same rate as older people -- not only will we beat Trump, but we lay the groundwork for transforming this country.”
As for his policy agenda, Sanders echoed his previous calls for a Green New Deal, Medicare-for-all, and the elimination of student debt.
“We can cancel all student debt in America with a modest tax on Wall Street speculation," he proposed.

Protester to Adam Schiff on Capitol Hill: 'Move to Venezuela, Mr. Schiff!'

Several angry protesters got up close and personal with House impeachment manager Adam Schiff on Capitol Hill during President Trump's Senate trial, calling the California Democrat a "liar," among other things, and advising him to “Move to Venezuela!"
Video posted online showed the confrontation appearing to happen as Schiff was leaving the Senate chamber after arguing the Democrats' case during one of the trial sessions last week.
Schiff, who was among a group exiting the Senate with a police escort, is seen nodding dismissively as a protester shouts at him, then leaving down a hall.
Another protester then shouts, "Move to Venezuela, Mr. Schiff!"
Over three days last week, Schiff led a team of Democrats who argued that Trump abused his power by asking Ukraine’s president to investigate the Bidens and withholding $400 million in military aid, allegedly on that condition.
They also claim the president obstructed Congress by blocking witnesses and documents during the House’s impeachment inquiry last fall.
Venezuela, a socialist country, has been in political and economic turmoil for years, partially due to food shortages and hyperinflation.
The U.S. and more than 50 governments recognize the country's opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president of the country. They say President Nicolás Maduro wasn't legitimately re-elected last year because opposition candidates weren't permitted to run.