Washington: US President Donald Trump’s legal team has asked the Senate to reject the two articles of impeachment passed and submitted by the House of Representatives, calling it a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their President.
The House of Representatives, controlled by the Democratic Party Wednesday voted to send articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate, in a major development to remove him from office for his alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
In a 228-193 vote, which was mainly on party lines, the House appointed seven impeachment managers who will argue the Democrats’ case for removing Trump from the office of the US President.
The managers were named by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Responding to the charges filed against Trump, the legal team of the White House said the two articles are a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the will of the people of the county.
“This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election-now just months away. The highly partisan and reckless obsession with impeaching the President began the day he was inaugurated and continues to this day,” the legal team said.
The 435-member House, where Democrats enjoy a majority, December 18 charged Trump with ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ and impeached him for pressuring Ukraine to investigate former US Vice President Joe Biden, a potential Democratic rival for the current president in the 2020 elections.
The Senate, controlled by Trump’s Republican Party, will decide whether to convict and remove him from office.
Trump Friday appointed several nationally known lawyers to the team that will defend him in the proceedings, set to open Tuesday afternoon.
The WH’s legal team said that the articles of impeachment are a dangerous attack on the right of the American people.
“The articles of impeachment submitted by the House of Representatives are a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their President,” it said.
The House, in its 111-page brief, said that Trumps conduct is the Framers’ worst nightmare.
“The Senate should do its constitutional duty to address the ongoing threat that the President poses to the nation by convicting and removing him from office,” the brief mentions.
The House Managers, appointed by House Speaker Pelosi, are Congressmen Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler, Zoe Lofgren, Hakeem Jeffries, Val Demings, Jason Crow and Sylvia Garcia.
“The case against the President of the US is simple, the facts are indisputable, and the evidence is overwhelming: President Trump abused the power of his office to solicit foreign interference in our elections for his own personal political gain, thereby jeopardising our national security, the integrity of our elections, and our democracy,” they alleged.
The managers alleged that Trump attempted to cover up his scheme by obstructing Congress’s investigation into his misconduct.
“And when the President got caught, he tried to cover it up by obstructing the House’s investigation into his misconduct. Senators must accept and fulfill the responsibility placed on them by the Framers of our Constitution and the Oaths they have just taken to do impartial justice. They must conduct a fair trial — fair to the President and fair to the American people,” the House managers said in a joint statement.
PTI