Day in Impeachment: President’s Defense Attacks Biden and the Charges vs. Trump Alan Dershowitz argued that demands by United States presidents for a specific action by a foreign governments are common. Video transcript Back bars 0:00 / 2:40 - 0:00 transcript Trump Impeachment Trial Highlights: Defense Sidesteps Bolton Revelations President Trump’s lawyers played down details from John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, about why the president froze aid to Ukraine. “Nothing in the Bolton revelations — even if true — would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense. That is clear from the history. That is clear from the language of the Constitution. You cannot turn conduct that is not impeachable into impeachable conduct simply by using words like ‘quid pro quo’ and ‘personal benefit.’” “We deal with publicly available information. We do not deal with speculation, allegations that are not based on evidentiary standards at all.” “Impeachment is hell. Or at least presidential impeachment is hell. Those of us who lived through the Clinton impeachment, including members of this body, full well understand that a presidential impeachment is tantamount to domestic war, albeit thankfully protected by our beloved First Amendment. A war of words and a war of ideas.” “So yes, Mayor Giuliani was President Trump’s personal attorney, but he was not on a political errand. As he has stated repeatedly and publicly, he was doing what good defense attorneys do. He was following a lead from a well-known private investigator.” “Anyone who spoke with the president said that the president made clear that there was no linkage between security assistance and investigations. There is another category of evidence demonstrating that the pause on security assistance was distinct and unrelated to investigations.” “I can’t begin to tell you how John Bolton’s testimony would ultimately play on a final decision. But it’s relevant, and therefore I’d like to hear it. I think it’s increasingly likely that other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton. And whether there are other witnesses and documents, why, that’s another matter. But I think John Bolton’s relevance to our decision has become, has become increasingly clear.” “Would the trial, the Senate trial be fair without John Bolton testifying?” “I think it’s important to be able to hear from John Bolton for us to be able to make an impartial judgment.” President Trump’s lawyers played down details from John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, about why the president froze aid to Ukraine. Credit Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard University law professor, argued that charges against Trump are too vague and that he now believes that impeachable conduct must be criminal in nature. He insisted that a long list of presidents have been accused of abuse of power for all kinds of subjective reasons and accused the House managers of engaging in “psychoanalysis” in concluding that Mr. Trump’s motivations were corrupt.

The defense began its promised assault on former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, Hunter, on Monday, describing what they said was significant evidence of corruption that made Mr. Trump’s interest in the case proper. Pam Bondi, one of the president’s lawyers, accused Democrats of denying the legitimacy of investigations into the Bidens because the House case depends on the premise that Mr. Trump was only interested in the negative political impact on his rival.

Republicans angrily pressed the White House in private about the revelations from a manuscript by John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, that said Mr. Trump wanted to continue freezing security aid to Ukraine until he got help with investigations into Democrats. They said they were blindsided by the former adviser’s account — especially because the administration has had a copy of it since Dec. 30.

Jan. 27, 2020, 9:34 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 9:34 p.m. ET By Sharon LaFraniere and Dershowitz argues that nothing Bolton is said to have written would be impeachable. Closing out a long day, Alan Dershowitz, perhaps the Trump team’s best-known lawyer, said House managers had resorted to “politically loaded and promiscuously deployed” charges to cast President Trump’s conduct as impeachable. He insisted that the House managers tried to substitute “psychoanalysis” for concrete evidence against the president, deciding that Mr. Trump was “only interested in helping himself” and not in valid policy goals. “You cannot turn conduct that is not impeachable into impeachable conduct simply by using words like quid pro quo and personal benefit,” he said. Mr. Dershowitz argued that the president should not be impeached even if it was true, as John R. Bolton, his former national security adviser, states in an unpublished manuscript, that Mr. Trump withheld military assistance to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations that would help him politically. Mr. Dershowitz argued that American presidents often demanded specific actions by foreign governments in exchange for some kind of benefit. He compared Mr. Trump’s suspension of Ukrainian military aid to American pressure to withhold aid from Israel unless it stopped building settlements in Palestinian-occupied territories. He did not specifically address the distinction between the president’s personal benefit and the national interest, although he said the House managers were wrong to assume that they knew what the president was thinking. “If a president, any president, would have done what The Times reported about the content of the Bolton manuscript, that would not constitute an impeachable offense,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “Let me repeat: Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense.” Read more

Jan. 27, 2020, 8:30 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 8:30 p.m. ET By Dershowitz makes the case that the charges against Trump are too vague. Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor, said he now believes that impeachable conduct must be criminal in nature. But even if that weren’t so, he said, the charges against Mr. Trump — abuse of power and obstruction of justice — are simply too ill-defined to accept as violations worthy of impeachment. A long list of presidents have been accused of abuse of power for all kinds of subjective reasons, he said. He accused the House managers of engaging in “psychoanalysis” in concluding that Mr. Trump’s motivations were corrupt. He added, “Even if criminal conduct were not required, the framers of our Constitution would have implicitly rejected and, if it had been presented to them, explicitly rejected such vague terms as abuse of power and obstruction of Congress as among the enumerated and defining criteria for impeaching a president.” In 1998, when President Bill Clinton faced potential impeachment, Mr. Dershowitz described an impeachable offense differently. “It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don’t need a technical crime,” he said then. He said then that “great offenses of state” that “subvert the very essence of democracy” could also warrant impeachment. Read more

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Jan. 27, 2020, 8:19 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 8:19 p.m. ET By Trump defense team saves Dershowitz for prime time. Image Alan Dershowitz, a member of President Trump’s legal team, arriving Monday on Capitol Hill. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times After a day of somewhat monotonous legal arguments, it is no surprise that President Trump’s legal team saved its star consultant — Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School — for the 8 p.m. hour, prime time on national television. Mr. Dershowitz, 81, who has gained notoriety of late by representing the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is no stranger to high-profile cases. His clients have also included O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson and the newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. In short, he brings exactly the kind of pizazz that Mr. Trump, a former reality show host, wants for the proceedings. Mr. Dershowitz’s job is to put the charges against Mr. Trump in a constitutional context. He began by noting that he “abhorred” President Richard M. Nixon, “whose impeachment I personally favored,” and said he opposed the impeachment of Bill Clinton and voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Had Mrs. Clinton been impeached on the same charges as Mr. Trump, Mr. Dershowitz said, he would still be in the chamber making the case against conviction. “I stand against the application and misapplication of the constitutional criteria in every case, and against any president without regard to whether I support his or her parties or policies,” Mr. Dershowitz told the senators, adding, “I am here today because I love my country and our Constitution. Everyone in this room shares that love.” Read more

Jan. 27, 2020, 8:05 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 8:05 p.m. ET By A Trump ally is expected to get into the Georgia Senate race. Image Representative Doug Collins of Georgia plans to challenge Senator Kelly Loeffler, a fellow Republican. Credit... Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times Representative Doug Collins, one of the faces of President Trump’s impeachment defense, plans to challenge Senator Kelly Loeffler in this fall’s special election for one of Georgia’s Senate seats, people familiar with his plans said on Monday. Mr. Collins’s long-expected decision sets the stage for a brutal Republican-on-Republican fight that will put a prominent House conservative known for his defenses of Mr. Trump against a wealthy businesswoman appointed last month to fill the state’s vacant Senate seat. Mr. Collins is expected to announce his campaign on Tuesday, according to the people familiar with his plans, who were not authorized to discuss it publicly. He enters the race with widespread name recognition on the right, having served as the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee during its impeachment hearings and now a member of Mr. Trump’s impeachment defense team. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, passed over Mr. Collins in favor of Ms. Loeffler when he selected a temporary replacement for retiring Senator Johnny Isakson late last year. He did so despite direct entreaties from Mr. Trump and some of his allies on Mr. Collins’s behalf, and their complaints that Ms. Loeffler was not a reliable enough supporter of the president. Ms. Loeffler, a prominent political donor and political newcomer, has spent the weeks since trying to burnish a conservative record. She did so again on Monday just hours before news of Mr. Collins’s campaign surfaced. She attacked Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a Republican she once donated large sums of money to, for advocating that witnesses be called in Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial. “After 2 weeks, it’s clear that Democrats have no case for impeachment,” she wrote on Twitter. “Sadly, my colleague @SenatorRomney wants to appease the left by calling witnesses who will slander the @realDonaldTrump during their 15 minutes of fame. The circus is over. It’s time to move on!” Read more

Jan. 27, 2020, 7:56 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 7:56 p.m. ET By What would happen if the Senate subpoenas John Bolton? What would happen if the Senate, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. presiding, issued a subpoena calling on John R. Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser, to testify — and Mr. Trump tried to block it in court? Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware and a graduate of Yale Law School, has been pondering that constitutional question. Not surprisingly, he comes down on the side of the Senate. “I will assert that the powers of the Senate are at their apex, to paraphrase, during an impeachment inquiry,” Mr. Coons told reporters during the dinner break. “And if you had a subpoena that was a bipartisan subpoena, signed by the chief justice, in a matter currently in consideration in front of the Senate, I would expect deference from the courts to our decision as a body.” That scenario, of course, is far from a reality. Republicans have yet to agree to call Mr. Bolton — or any other witness — and the trial may end without them doing so. A vote on the question will come after Mr. Trump’s legal team wraps up its defense and senators have had a chance to ask questions, likely as soon as this week.

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Jan. 27, 2020, 7:51 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 7:51 p.m. ET By Robert Ray argued that House managers are drawing on ‘their own interpretations.’ Image Representative Adam B. Schiff, the lead impeachment manager, Monday on Capitol Hill. Credit... Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times Robert W. Ray, who succeeded Ken Starr as the independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton, delivered a lively denunciation of the case against President Trump on Monday evening as he made his debut as a member of the White House defense team. Mr. Ray lashed out at the House managers, saying that they had failed to prove any of their accusations against the president, charging that “the purported implicit link between foreign aid and the investigations, or the announcement of them, is weak.” Drawing on his previous experience with impeachment, Mr. Ray argued that House managers are drawing on “their own interpretations” about the motivations of Mr. Trump and the other people involved in the Ukraine matter. And he sought to counter the House argument that the Constitution does not require a president to commit a crime to be impeached. Mr. Ray insisted that “to ignore the requirement of proving that a crime was committed is to sidestep the constitutional design as well as the lessons of history.” Mr. Ray also lambasted the House for charging the president with abuse of Congress for blocking testimony from witnesses and refusing to hand over documents during the impeachment inquiry. “When I hear Mr. Schiff’s complaint that the House’s request for former White House Counsel Don McGann’s testimony, grand jury material and other documents have been drawn out since April of last year, I can only say in response: Boo hoo,” Mr. Ray said. “Any contention that what has transpired here involving this administration’s assertion of valid and well recognized claims of privileges and immunities is somehow contrary to law and impeachable is ludicrous,” he said. Read more

Jan. 27, 2020, 7:42 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 7:42 p.m. ET By The president’s behavior falls far short of an impeachable offense, Trump’s defense argues. After the dinner break, the president’s legal team renewed their argument that Mr. Trump had not committed any crime — much less a crime so grave that it warranted booting him out of office. Robert Ray, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, said that impeachable conduct must not only be criminal in nature but so serious that it subverts the nation’s system of government. Otherwise, he said, it “cheapens the impeachment process” and qualifies as “an American tragedy all of its own.” Mr. Ray took over as independent counsel at the end of a lengthy investigation of President Bill Clinton, following Ken Starr. Mr. Starr argued earlier in the day that both President Nixon and Mr. Clinton were accused of crimes. And he added that Mr. Clinton’s acquittal in 1998 showed that even “the commission of a crime is by no means sufficient to warrant” a president’s removal. Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard University law professor, is to come later.

Jan. 27, 2020, 7:17 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 7:17 p.m. ET By A quick dinner break for Chick-fil-A and a podcast plug. Image Food from Chick-fil-A was delivered to the Capitol Monday evening. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times The 45-minute dinner break at the Senate impeachment trial featured selections from Chick-fil-A, a choice that reminded Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, of his earlier tenure in the more proletarian lower chamber. “We’re all in there now eating Chick-fil-A,” he said with a chuckle. “I feel like I’m in the House of Representatives.” Then, lest he be taken seriously, he made sure to add: “By the way, I love Chick-fil-A.” He and several other Republicans took advantage of the break to praise the arguments made by President Trump’s lawyers in the afternoon. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas also tucked in a plug of his new podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” which is No. 1 on the iTunes charts. “Each night, at the end of the trial, I’m discussing these issues in depth, because I think the American people want to hear substantive topics that they want to get,” Mr. Cruz said, “beyond just screaming and yelling on cable.” Read more

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Jan. 27, 2020, 7:12 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 7:12 p.m. ET By Sketches capture the action in the Senate. Video Credit Credit... Art Lien for The New York Times Courtroom artist Art Lien sketches with a thin mechanical pencil from his perch in the Senate press gallery, where he is covering the trial for The Times. “People move around and things change, so it’s nice to be able to erase,” he said. As he draws each image, he jots down notes about color, because he must exit the chamber before filling in his drawings with watercolor. To identify senators — or their empty seats — he consults a seating chart distributed by press gallery staff members. See all of Mr. Lien’s drawings from Mr. Trump’s trial here. Read more

Jan. 27, 2020, 6:58 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 6:58 p.m. ET By In Iowa, Biden says he has nothing to defend. Image Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. campaigning Monday in Marion, Iowa. Credit... Jordan Gale for The New York Times While he was under attack in Washington on Monday, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spent his day appealing to Iowans with just a week to go before the state’s caucuses. On the campaign trail, Mr. Biden largely kept his focus on topics other than impeachment. But at an event in Cedar Falls, he pointed to the trial — and President Trump’s conduct that led to it — to argue that the president did not want to face him in the general election. “There’s a reason why this man is on trial,” he told the crowd. “The reason he’s on trial is because he does not want to run against me.” Speaking briefly to reporters after the event, Mr. Biden said of the manuscript of John R. Bolton, the president’s former national security adviser, “If I were in the Senate, I’d want to see it.” He also made clear, once again, that he had no interest in testifying at the trial. Asked if he would be his own best defense if he were to testify, Mr. Biden responded, “I have nothing to defend. This is all a game.” Read more

Jan. 27, 2020, 5:54 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 5:54 p.m. ET By Trump and Pam Bondi have ties that go back to Florida. Pam Bondi and Mr. Trump have a history going back long before her appearance today to help his defense as president. When she was Florida’s attorney general, Mr. Trump was targeted in an investigation by the attorney general in New York and other states alleging fraud in the marketing of a business he then ran, called Trump University. Prosecutors accused Mr. Trump of defrauding students who had signed up for Trump University’s real estate and wealth-building seminars. Ms. Bondi’s office was asked in 2013 if the attorney general had opened an investigation — like other states — into activities of Trump University, given the school’s recruitment efforts in Florida. “We are currently reviewing the allegations in the New York complaint,” a spokeswoman for Ms. Bondi wrote back to the reporter from The Orlando Sentinel. It was just four days later, in September 2013, that a check for $25,000 from the Donald J. Trump Foundation landed in the Tampa office of a political action committee that had been formed to support Ms. Bondi’s 2014 re-election. By mid-October 2013, Ms. Bondi’s office announced that it would not be acting on the Trump University complaints. Brian Ballard, who was then Mr. Trump’s lobbyist in Florida, said it was “ridiculous” to think his client sought to buy off Ms. Bondi. “I’m the Trump Organization lobbyist, and he has never, ever brought up Trump University with me,” he said. (Mr. Ballard has more recently gone on to be a major lobbyist in Washington, picking up corporate clients and foreign governments based on his ties to Mr. Trump). But questions about the donation continued because the contribution had come from a nonprofit charity that Mr. Trump had created and used the money instead to support a political cause. Allegations surfaced that this was an illegal contribution. Mr. Trump ultimately agreed to refund $25,000 to the foundation from his personal account and pay a $2,500 penalty to the Internal Revenue Service. Read more

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Jan. 27, 2020, 5:13 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 5:13 p.m. ET By Another Republican senator says he’s open to a witness exchange. Image Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, indicated that he was open to calling witnesses. Credit... Erin Schaff/The New York Times Add another name to the list of Republicans toying with calling witnesses at President Trump’s impeachment trial. At a private luncheon of Republican senators on Monday, Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, indicated to colleagues that he was open to calling witnesses if Republicans could work out an arrangement so that a witness like John R. Bolton was called in exchange for one seen as more beneficial to the president, according to Republicans familiar with his remarks not authorized to discuss them. His remarks are another sign that Republicans are under increasing pressure after revelations that Mr. Bolton asserts in a forthcoming book that Mr. Trump told him he would not release nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine until the country had assisted with investigations into the Bidens and other Democrats. Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, also spoke in favor of calling witnesses during the lunch, the Republicans said. He argued that doing so made sense both in terms of substance and politics. Mr. Toomey’s views were reported earlier by The Washington Post. Read more

Jan. 27, 2020, 5:09 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 5:09 p.m. ET By Lawyers begin their assault on Joe Biden and his son Hunter. President Trump’s lawyers began their promised assault on former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, Hunter, on Monday, describing what they said was significant evidence of corruption that made Mr. Trump’s interest in the case proper. Pam Bondi, one of the president’s lawyers, said the defense team would rather have ignored questions about the former vice president and his son, but was forced to address the issue after the House prosecutors referenced the Bidens and a Ukraine energy company more than 400 times. She accused Democrats of denying the legitimacy of investigations into the Bidens because the House case depends on the premise that Mr. Trump was only interested in the negative political impact of the investigations on his rival. “They say sham. They say baseless,” Ms. Bondi told the senators. “They say this because if it’s okay for someone to say, ‘hey, you know what, maybe there’s something here worth raising,’ their case crumbles.” Jay Sekulow, another lawyer for Mr. Trump, had earlier hinted that the defense team would spend significant time on the Bidens after the House managers concluded their arguments. As promised, Ms. Bondi delved deeply into Hunter Biden’s work on the board of Burisma, the energy company, at the time his father was vice president. At one point, she played a television interview with Hunter Biden. “If your last name was not Biden, do you think you would have been asked to be on the board of Burisma?” Mr. Biden is asked. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Probably not.” Democrats say the activities of the Bidens are irrelevant to the president’s actions regarding Ukraine, and insist there is no legitimate evidence that either Hunter Biden or the former vice president did anything improper. They accuse Mr. Trump of trying to smear the elder Mr. Biden because he is a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Read more

Jan. 27, 2020, 4:50 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 4:50 p.m. ET By The House wants the Senate to ‘clean up the mess’ of its unfinished inquiry, lawyer argues. Patrick Philbin, a deputy White House counsel, argued that the House was trying to shove off the hard work of subpoenaing witnesses to the Senate — all because it wanted to impeach President Trump before the election. House managers said that the White House was simply too intransigent and wanted to sabotage the whole investigation by blocking the testimony of Mr. Trump’s closest aides on frivolous grounds, dragging out the inquiry for months. But Mr. Philbin said the House investigators failed to go to court to try to compel the testimony of certain witnesses because they were following a political schedule, not conducting a fair or legally justifiable proceeding. Now the House managers wanted the Senate to issue and enforce subpoenas, essentially “clean up the mess and try to do all the work that wasn’t done,” he said. That’s not fair to the Senate, he argued, making a case that could appeal to many senators. “If it wants to bring an impeachment here ready for trial,” he said, the House “has to be ready to proceed, not transfer the responsibility to this chamber.”

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Jan. 27, 2020, 3:40 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 3:40 p.m. ET By Rudy Giuliani is a ‘colorful distraction,’ lawyer argues. For the first time for the defense, Jane Raskin, one of the president’s lawyers, focused on the role of Rudy W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. She called him a “colorful distraction,” pointing out that despite his purported importance in the controversy, House impeachment investigators did not subpoena him to testify. Legal experts suggest that Mr. Giuliani would have refused to disclose any of his conversations with Mr. Trump on the basis of attorney-client privilege. And he would surely have been a difficult witness, given his often erratic performance in televised interviews. But Ms. Raskin argued that the investigators did not want to hear from Mr. Giuliani because he would not have backed up their claims that he was executing a shadow foreign policy toward Ukraine at Mr. Trump’s request. “He was not on a political errand,” she said. In his own inimitable “outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous” style, she said, he was pursuing valid leads about corruption in Ukraine for the benefit of his client — not pressuring Ukrainian officials for Mr. Trump’s political gain.

Jan. 27, 2020, 3:35 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 3:35 p.m. ET By Senators yawn and take notes as the defense team talks. The slow start to the trial had some senators inside the chamber visibly struggling to remain engaged with President Trump’s lawyers. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” Ken Starr intoned. Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, rubbed his eyes with his right hand and yawned. Across the aisle, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, grabbed a notebook, stood up from her desk and leaned against a railing in the back of the chamber. Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who would almost certainly prefer to be on the presidential campaign trail, leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his chest, looking mildly exasperated. Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, appeared to hand over a candy or mint to his desk neighbor, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, who accepted. Not all seemed bored by the monotonous proceedings. Of the four closely watched moderate Republicans who could join Democrats to force the Senate to pursue new testimony and documents, no one scribbled more notes than Senator Susan Collins of Maine. Seated next to her, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska stared intently at the lawyers, rocking her chair gently back and forth. One line seemed to warrant special attention from Republican senators: When Mr. Starr declared that “the commission of a crime is by no means sufficient to warrant the removal of our duly elected president,” suggesting that any crime needed to be serious enough to rise to the level of impeachment. Several senators, including Ms. Collins, seemed to jot it down. Read more

Jan. 27, 2020, 3:20 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 3:20 p.m. ET By Trump’s lawyers say Ukraine’s leader got the meeting he wanted, even though he said he did not. Image President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Credit... Petras Malukas/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images President Trump’s defense team keeps asserting that Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, got the meeting he wanted with Mr. Trump. Michael Purpura, one of the president’s lawyers, pointed out that the two leaders met Sept. 25 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly gathering in New York. He quoted the testimony of Fiona Hill, a former top national security official, who said a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky did not necessarily have to take place in the Oval Office. But Ms. Hill also said that every single foreign leader wants an Oval Office invitation from the American president, and that they are not satisfied with so-called pull-aside at another event, like a United Nations meeting. Other witnesses testified an Oval Office meeting was extremely important to Mr. Zelensky to boost his credibility at home and abroad, including with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. In fact, during his Sept. 25 news conference with Mr. Trump, Mr. Zelensky noted that Mr. Trump had invited him to the Oval Office but then said half-jokingly: “I think you forgot to tell me the date.” Mr. Purpura did not mention that Gordon D. Sondland, the American ambassador to European Union, testified that an Oval Office invitation for Mr. Zelensky depended on Ukraine’s announcement that it was investigating the Bidens and whether Ukraine had some role interfering in the 2016 American election. Mr. Sondland described that as an explicit “quid pro quo.” Read more

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Jan. 27, 2020, 3:01 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 3:01 p.m. ET By 2 hours in, Bolton’s revelations have not come up. President Trump’s lawyers ignored revelations from John R. Bolton, the president’s former national security adviser, as they opened the second day of their impeachment defense, doubling down on their claim that Mr. Trump cared about getting more European support for Ukraine, not investigations of his Democratic rivals. Michael Purpura, one of the president’s lawyers, asserted that “anyone who spoke with the president said that the president made clear that there was no linkage between security assistance and investigations.” That claim is directly contradicted by the weekend report from the draft manuscript of Mr. Bolton’s upcoming book, in which he wrote that Mr. Trump said that he wanted to keep holding on to the security aid until Ukraine’s leaders conducted the investigations of Democrats that Mr. Trump wanted. Mr. Purpura made no reference to Mr. Bolton’s claims about the security aid, which on Monday scrambled Republican efforts to push back against Democratic demands to call additional witnesses, including Mr. Bolton. Instead, Mr. Purpura pointed to other testimony in arguing that there was no tie between Mr. Trump’s desire for investigations and the aid. Nearly two hours into the defense’s second day of arguments, the Senate took a break and the president’s lawyers had not directly addressed the claims in Mr. Bolton’s book. But Jay Sekulow, another lawyer for Mr. Trump, seemed to hint that the information about Mr. Bolton’s book should not be properly considered by senators sitting in judgment of Mr. Trump. “We deal with transcript evidence, we deal with publicly available information,” Mr. Sekulow said. “We do not deal with speculation, allegations that are not based on evidentiary standards at all.” Read more

Jan. 27, 2020, 2:27 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2020, 2:27 p.m. ET By Trump’s lawyers plan to fight Bolton’s testimony. As the White House began Day 2 of its impeachment defense, lawyers were preparing for the possibility that senators would vote to call witnesses, and are looking at which witnesses they might ask for in return for testimony by John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser. But members of the defense team also have told associates that they would fight Mr. Bolton’s testimony. It is not clear whether they would try to fight the issuance of a subpoena, which would play out before Chief Justice John G. Roberts, or whether they would they try to get a restraining order, which the Justice Department has never done. Mr. Bolton said earlier this month that he would testify if subpoenaed by the Senate, and the Trump administration would face serious hurdles trying to stop a willing witness. Whether the White House will try to press for one of its edgier witnesses, like Hunter Biden, in exchange for Mr. Bolton remains to be seen. But they are signaling to senators that the decision to allow Mr. Bolton to testify could end up so entangled in court proceedings that it could take several weeks, something Republican senators are hoping to avoid. Read more