Donald Trump’s defence lawyers tried to shift focus away from new revelations from former national security adviser John Bolton, saying they would ignore “speculation” and only address evidence already introduced into the president’s impeachment trial.
“We deal with transcript evidence, we deal with publicly available information,” Jay Sekulow told the US Senate on Monday. “We do not deal with speculation, allegations that are not based on evidentiary standards at all.”
Mr Sekulow’s comments came after reports that an upcoming book from Mr Bolton will accuse Mr Trump of saying that he was withholding aid to Ukraine until Kyiv complied with a demand to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden.
The reports caught Senate Republicans off-guard. At least two Republican senators — Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine — indicated on Monday that they would consider voting to call additional witness, such as Mr Bolton, in the impeachment trial.
Mr Sekulow, Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, opened Monday’s trial proceedings by noting that Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian president, had stated he had felt “no pressure” from the White House over the Biden investigation, and argued that impeachment was rooted solely in partisan policy differences.
“We live in a constitutional republic where you have deep policy concerns and deep differences that should not be the basis of an impeachment . . . Are we going to have every time there’s a policy difference of significance or an approach difference of significance about a policy, we’re going to start an impeachment proceeding?” Mr Sekulow asked.
He then turned the floor over to Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel who led the effort to impeach Bill Clinton. Mr Starr pointed to the Clinton trial as an example of the dangers of impeachment.
“We are living in what can aptly be described as the age of impeachment,” said Mr Starr, who became a bête noir on the left for his leading role in Bill Clinton’s impeachment and the airing of the Monica Lewinsky affair.
“Those of us who lived through the Clinton impeachment, including members of this body, full well understand that a presidential impeachment is tantamount to domestic war, but thankfully protected by our beloved First Amendment, a war of words and a war of ideas,” said Mr Starr. “But it’s filled with acrimony and it divides the country like nothing else. Those of us who lived through the Clinton impeachment understand that in a deep and personal way.”
The former independent counsel suggested that Democrats were attacking Mr Trump for being “controversial” — a character attribute that did not meet the standard for impeachment.
“Have there been controversial presidents? Think of John Adams and the early Sedition Act,” Mr Starr said.
Mr Starr’s statement — part of the 24 hours given to Mr Trump’s defence team for opening arguments at the outset of the impeachment trial — generated whiplash in Washington.
“Right now even GOP Senators are looking at Ken Starr and thinking ‘WTF?!’”, Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, tweeted.
Mr Trump’s team spoke for just a few hours on Saturday, and is expected to speak for only part of the allotted time on Monday and Tuesday. House impeachment managers wrapped up their opening arguments last week.
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