In their trial memo, Trump’s attorneys contend that the obstruction charge is not valid because he was asserting his legal right and immunity granted to him by his position, adding that to question that would cause “grave damage” to the separation of powers.
“President Trump has not in any way ‘abused the powers of the Presidency,’” they argued. “At all times, the president has faithfully and effectively executed the duties of his office on behalf of the American people.”
And his lawyers have said his election gives him the right to refuse subpoenas given to his cabinet and staff, to decline to hand over documents to investigators, and to shut down certain witnesses.
“In order to fulfill his duties to the American people, the Constitution, the Executive Branch, and all future occupants of the Office of the Presidency, President Trump and his Administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead impeachment manager, has urged senators to remember the Constitution’s framers sought to prevent a chief executive from wielding power as if it “was conferred upon him by divine right.”
The American Revolution was fought so that “no person, including and especially the president, would be above the law,” Schiff told the Senate on Wednesday. “Nothing could be more dangerous to a democracy than a commander in chief who believed that he could operate with impunity, free from accountability.”
That is not a view Trump shares. He has declared that he has an “absolute right” to wield executive authority at least 29 times since his election, according to an Associated Press review of his comments in Factba.se, which compiles and analyzes data on Trump’s presidency.
That included when he shut down the government over a border wall battle, threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border, fired Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, asked other countries to investigate corruption, shared classified intelligence with Russia and said he could pardon himself.
“Trump’s usage is, I think, novel — without precedent — in U.S. history of presidential rhetoric,” John Wooley, co-director of the The American Presidency Project at the University of California-Santa Barbara, said in an email.
