Senators ask questions as crucial witnesses vote looms in impeachment trial
President Trump’s counsel was asked to respond to the arguments or assertions that the House managers made to the previous questions.
Pat Philbin, responding for the President’s counsel, first responded to House manager Adam Schiff’s assertion that there was no evidence Trump was interested in burden-sharing.
Philbin cited a June 24 email following up on burden sharing for foreign aid. He also cited the transcript of the call between the President and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“The President asked, he said, ‘We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time for Ukraine, much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than we are,’” Philbin remarked.
Philbin also refuted Schiff’s suggestion that there was evidence of a connection between Ukrainian military assistance and investigations into Trump’s political rival.
Philbin specifically cited acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s walkback of comments at a press briefing which he suggested there was a connect between the aid and the investigations.
“It’s been clear in the record since that press conference that what he was saying was garbled or misunderstood and he immediately clarified,” Philbin said.
Philbin also pushed back on calls for former White House national security adviser John Bolton to testify as part of the Senate impeachment trial, saying it would set a precedent for all future impeachment proceedings.
“For this institution, the real question is — what is the precedent that is going to be set for what is an acceptable way for the House of Representatives to bring an impeachment of a president of the United States to this chamber?” Philbin asked.
“To insist now that this body will become the investigative body, that this body will have to do all the discovery and that this institution will effectively have to be effectively paralyzed for months on end because it has to sit as a court of impeachment while now discovery is done because it would be … they said fair trial, fair adjudication. Then the President would have to have his opportunity to call his witnesses. And there would be depositions. And this would drag on for months. And then that’s the new precedent,” he continued.
