And the White House defense is ... well, there isn't one
And the White House defense is ... well, there isn’t one
By
Dana Milbank
Columnist
Jan. 21, 2020 at 6:58 p.m. EST
...Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and his Senate Republicans had been rewriting the trial rules on the fly, minutes before bringing them to the floor for a vote. They are quite literally making things up as they go along.
Public pressure on moderate Republican senators had, for the moment, forced McConnell to soften a couple of the most egregious trial rules — notably, a plan that would have forced the case to be argued in the middle of the night — but it did nothing to slow McConnell’s pell-mell rush to acquit. McConnell, who during a break in proceedings Tuesday huddled with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, succeeded in rebuffing, along party lines, efforts to call witnesses and demand documents that Trump withheld.
Why such a hurry? The answer became apparent as soon as Trump’s lawyers opened their mouths for the first time during the impeachment proceedings.
They shouted. They spouted invective. They launched personal attacks against the impeachment managers. But they offered virtually nothing in defense of the president’s conduct, nor anything but a passing reference to Ukraine....
Here were the president’s men, in the flesh, occupying a factual universe all their own. “The president was not allowed to have a lawyer present” in House proceedings, said the presidential lawyers who refused to be present in House proceedings.
“They ask you to trample on executive privilege,” they said, even though Trump hasn’t even invoked executive privilege.
The impeachment managers have “evidence … that we haven’t been allowed to see,” said the White House officials who blocked the release of all documents.
Day One offered the starkest of contrasts: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and his impeachment managers framing their case in somber terms and painstaking detail — and the other side responding with what amounted to an extended reading of Trump’s tweets.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/21/white-house-defense-is-well-there-isnt-one/