House Democrats make their case for removing Trump from office: ‘Framers’ worst nightmare’

The legal filings are the paper version of the arguments that will play out on the Senate floor starting next week, as the chamber is transformed from legislative body to courtroom. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is presiding over the proceedings, and the Senate is being adjusted for the trial, including adding the ability to play audio and video, normally forbidden in the chamber.

House Democrats charge that Trump abused his office by withholding $400 million in security aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine while pressuring Kiev to open investigations into the President’s political rivals. Then, they say, he obstructed the congressional investigation of his misconduct with an unprecedented blockade of House subpoenas to Trump administration agencies and officials.

The President’s legal team filed a brief Saturday evening charging that the impeachment articles are “constitutionally invalid on their face.”

House managers cite Parnas docs, watchdog report

The House’s brief for the upcoming Senate impeachment trial includes some references — but not an extensive discussion — of new evidence that’s come out since the House impeached the President last month.

The inclusion of the new material signals that the House managers don’t intend to solely keep their arguments to what they knew when the House passed two articles of impeachment against the President last month, and they will incorporate the new developments.

The House managers wrote in their brief that the GAO “has determined that the President’s hold was illegal and violated the Impoundment Control Act, which limits the President’s authority to withhold funds that Congress has appropriated.”

In the brief, there’s a reference to the Parnas documents — a letter that Giuliani sent requesting a meeting with then-Ukraine President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky. The House does not cite other material that Parnas provided, including text messages he exchanged with Giuliani, Rep. Devin Nunes’ aide Derek Harvey and Robert Hyde, a Connecticut congressional candidate whose texts suggests he may have been involved in an effort to surveil former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. He’s denied there was actual surveillance of Yovanovitch.

The House also made note of Bolton’s offer to testify in the Senate in several footnotes, nothing that while he “has not cooperated with the House’s inquiry, he has offered to testify to the Senate if subpoenaed.”

“Ambassador Bolton’s testimony would likewise be illuminating in this regard given public reporting of his repeated, yet unsuccessful, efforts to convince the President to lift the hold,” the managers wrote when referencing the documents that have been withheld from Congress related to the hold on US security aid.

Senate to debate trial rules on Tuesday

The Senate will return Tuesday by passing a resolution outlining the rules of the impeachment trial, which is expected to be approved only with Republican votes.

The text of the resolution has not been released. But it’s expected to punt the question of calling witnesses until after opening arguments and senators’ questions, while including an opportunity to vote on whether the Senate should have witnesses. Senate GOP leaders are also considering condensing the number of days for opening arguments, according to sources familiar with the matter, splitting the 24 hours given to each side into two, 12-hour days instead of four, six-hour days that were used during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.

House Democratic aides said they would be watching for any deviation from the Clinton precedent, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he’s following, including the number of days for arguments. By shortening the number of days for arguments, it helps Senate Republicans speed up the trial with the President’s State of the Union address looming on February 4.

A Senate GOP aide argued that Senate Republicans have “every right to make this shorter rather than longer.

“There are only two counts and not exactly a mountain of evidence. Certainly, not the evidence that was compiled in Watergate and ’98,” the aide said.

A source involved in discussions said that the Senate is expected to have at least one closed session Tuesday while senators debate the rules. When that happens, everyone has to leave the chamber, including the House managers and the President’s defense team, the source said. The Senate goes into closed session during the impeachment trial because senators are jurors and are not allowed to speak during the trial.

The seven House impeachment managers, led by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, are returning to Washington Sunday to prepare for the trial, according to Democratic aides. The managers will do a walk-through of the Senate chamber on Monday.

The aides said much of the paperwork, arguments and other materials for the trial have already been drafted by staff who have been working on the preparations over the past month. They plan to continue to “refine it” over the weekend, one of the sources said.

The President’s legal team will respond to the House’s brief by 12 p.m., ET Monday. The House will then have the chance to counter to the President’s trial brief by 12 p.m., ET on Tuesday. Separately, the House has a deadline of 12 p.m., ET on Monday to respond to the President’s answer to the impeachment articles that’s due Saturday evening.