After three days of eight-hour presentations by the House managers prosecuting the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump, the defense team took the stage Saturday morning. The president’s lawyers immediately made clear that they would not be following in the prosecution’s slow, methodical, somewhat repetitive footsteps. Speaking for a scant two hours, they vowed to keep things short and sweet.

“We don’t anticipate using that much time,” said Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, in his opening remarks. “We don’t believe that they have come anywhere close to meeting their burden for what they’re asking you to do.”

And what does the president’s team contend that the House managers are asking the Senate to do?

“They’re asking you not only to overturn the results of the last election, but as I’ve said before, they’re asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot in an election that’s occurring in approximately nine months,” Mr. Cipollone said. “They’re asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country on your own initiative, take that decision away from the American people.”

The Democrats pursuing the case against Mr. Trump say they are worried about the integrity of the electoral process, Mr. Cipollone said. But don’t believe them, he warned. “They are here to perpetrate the most massive interference of an election in American history. You can’t allow that to happen.”