Moments after the closing arguments led to President Trump’s impeachment trial, Democratic senators swarmed the desk the place Home managers sat wh
Moments after the closing arguments led to President Trump’s impeachment trial, Democratic senators swarmed the desk the place Home managers sat whereas they prosecuted the president for abuse of energy and obstruction of Congress.
Democratic senators Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Patty Murray of Washington, Jim Tester of Montana, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and a number of other others shook the palms of the Home managers. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota hugged Consultant Adam B. Schiff of California, the lead Home supervisor.
On the opposite aspect of the chamber, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the bulk chief, walked over to the desk the place the president’s protection crew sat. He congratulated Pat A. Cipollone, the White Home counsel, Jay Sekulow, the president’s lawyer, and different members of the crew.
After which, like the tip of a bitterly contested sports activities contest, the 2 sides — who had exchanged harsh phrases for one another throughout the trial — grudgingly greeted one another.
Norm Eisen, a lawyer working for the Home Judiciary Committee, shook palms with Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Sekulow. Lastly, Mr. Cipollone turned and left the chamber. Mr. Sekulow was about to do the identical, then turned again towards the Home managers. He walked over to Mr. Schiff, prolonged his hand, and Mr. Schiff took it. The 2 greeted one another shortly after which Mr. Sekulow turned and left.
Seizing on his ultimate alternative to make the case to Republican senators — and for the historical past books — to rethink their supposed acquittal of President Trump, Consultant Adam Schiff of California, the lead impeachment supervisor, framed his closing remarks with a pointed query: Can the Senate belief Mr. Trump?
“The quick, plain, unhappy, incontestable reply isn’t any, you’ll be able to’t,” Mr. Schiff mentioned. “You’ll be able to’t belief this president to do the precise factor, not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our nation, you simply can’t. He won’t change and you already know it.” He added: “A person with out character or moral compass won’t ever discover his approach.”
Mr. Schiff warned that an acquittal would normalize the abuse of energy that Mr. Trump dedicated, and bemoaned that the Senate appeared poised to “refuse to do something about it however wring our palms.”
“I hope and pray that we by no means have a president like Donald Trump within the Democratic Occasion,” Mr. Schiff mentioned. “And I might hope to God that if we did we’d impeach him, and Democrats would cleared the path.”
Jay Sekulow, President Trump’s private lawyer, known as for the Senate to reject articles of impeachment and “defend the Structure and the separation of powers,” by permitting voters to ship a verdict on the president’s conduct in an election 12 months.
“This was the primary completely partisan presidential impeachment in our nation’s historical past, and it ought to be our final,” Mr. Sekulow mentioned. He declared that Democrats “have cheapened the superior energy of impeachment and sadly, after all, the nation shouldn’t be higher for that.”
He, like different members of the president’s protection crew, pointed to the primary caucuses of the 2020 election, being held in Iowa on Monday, as additional motive to reject eradicating a president precisely 9 months earlier than Election Day.
“You might be being requested to do that when tonight residents of Iowa are going to be caucusing,” Mr. Sekulow mentioned. “The reply is elections, not impeachment.”
Mr. Sekulow additionally performed two movies for the senators to underscore his argument: a montage of Democrats calling for the president’s impeachment starting in 2017 set to ominous music, and a shorter montage of Senate Democrats becoming a member of Mr. Trump at invoice signing ceremonies, celebrating bipartisan accomplishment.
Taking intention on the second article of impeachment charging President Trump with obstruction of Congress, Patrick Philbin, the deputy White Home counsel, upbraided the Home for “leaping straight to the last word nuclear weapon of the Structure.”
To assist the cost of obstruction, Mr. Philbin argued, would “essentially alter the stability between the totally different branches of presidency.”
“The concept there isn’t a time for coping with that friction with the chief department is antithetical to the correct functioning of the separation of powers,” Mr. Philbin mentioned. Mr. Trump vowed in April to stonewall all subpoenas issued by the Home. His attorneys have argued that his defiance depends on an govt prerogative that presidents have asserted for many years.
“If I used to be him, I might keep away from the topic,” mentioned Senator Roy Blunt, Republican…