Washington: US President Donald Trump's lawyers opened their impeachment trial defense in a rare Saturday session by accusing Democrats of striving to overturn the results of the 2016 election, saying the Democrats' investigations into his dealings with Ukraine were not a fact-finding mission but a politically motivated effort to drive him from the White House.
“They're here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history," White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told senators. “And we can't allow that to happen."
The Trump legal team's arguments were aimed at rebutting allegations that the president abused his power when he asked Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden and then obstructed Congress as it tried to investigate. Trump is mounting a wide-ranging, aggressive defence asserting an expansive view of presidential powers and portraying him as besieged by political opponents determined to ensure that he won't be re-elected this November.
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“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 an election that's occurring in approximately nine months," Cipollone said. “They're asking you to tear up all the ballots across this country on their own initiative."
The president's lawyers were making only a truncated argument on Saturday before resuming on Monday. The attorneys are responding to two articles of impeachment approved last month by the House — one that accuses him of encouraging Ukraine to investigate Biden at the same time the administration withheld military aid from the country, and the other that accuses him of obstructing Congress by directing aides not to testify or produce documents.
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