Donald Trump’s defense team on Monday night argued that charges leveled upon the president by the House of Representatives – Abuse of power, and Obstruction of congress- were not impeachable offenses and the US president should be cleared of all charges immediately.
Trump is being tried in the senate over allegations of abuse of power and obstruction of congress after he allegedly withdrew military aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into his political rival – Joe Biden in a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s president Zelensky.
Trump has denied being involved in a quid pro quo and said the attempts to impeach him by Democrats started immediately he became president, first with the Russia collusion reports and now with Ukraine .
Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and former O.J. Simpson attorney, one of Trump’s star lawyers, made the well crafted plea at Trump’s impeachment trial on Monday night, appearing after other defense lawyers at the second-day of Trump’s defense.
Dershowitz had to make the controversial argument that ‘Abuse of Power’ does not constitute an impeachable offense, telling senators that the Founders of the constitution specifically rejected such vague terms when creating the Constitution in Philadelphia.
He said though he voted for Clinton, and he is not a fan of some of the president’s policies and actions, however from a legal standpoint, impeachment is only meant for presidents who commit high crimes and misdemeanors not obstruction of congress and abuse of power.
“Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense,’ said Dershowitz.’If a president, any president, were to have done what the [New York] Times reported about the contact of the Bolton manuscript, that would not constitute and impeachable offense,’ Dershowitz continued.
‘It is inconceivable that the framers would have intended so politically loaded and promiscuously deployed a term as abuse of power to be weaponized as a tool of impeachment,’ he said.
At one point he turned to opposing Democratic lawyers, and said: ‘I’m sorry, house managers, you just picked the wrong criteria. You picked the most dangerous possible criteria to serve as a precedent for with you we supervise future presidents,’
