President Trump’s legal team will ask the Senate on Monday for a speedy acquittal in his impeachment trial and assert that the process is “rigged,” maintaining that the president is innocent of the charges against him, The New York Times reported.
Trump’s lawyers are expected to submit a lengthy brief to the Senate one day before his trial is set to begin, arguing that the House impeachment effort is a “brazenly political act” following a “rigged process” that should be rejected by the Senate, the Times reported. The brief will reportedly argue that the impeachment articles against Trump are not valid because they do not state a violation of the law.
The lawyers plan to say that the president has the right to conduct his foreign relations on his own terms, however, they will not deny that Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals. They will call the first impeachment article, abuse of power, a “novel theory” and a “newly invented offense” that will set a precedent for Congress to unfairly question presidents for legitimate policy decisions.
Read it at The New York Times
