{"id":120867,"date":"2021-02-08T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T17:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=120867"},"modified":"2021-02-08T13:20:30","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T18:20:30","slug":"trumps-lawyers-say-impeachment-is-constitutionally-flawed-selfish-ploy-by-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trumps-lawyers-say-impeachment-is-constitutionally-flawed-selfish-ploy-by-democrats\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Lawyers Say Impeachment Is Constitutionally Flawed, \u2018Selfish\u2019 Ploy by Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftrumps-lawyers-say-impeachment-is-constitutionally-flawed-selfish-ploy-by-democrats%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=120867&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Former President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s lawyers on Monday argued that the House <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-impeachment\">impeachment<\/a> managers\u2019 article of impeachment against him for allegedly inciting the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6 is constitutionally flawed, will not result in a conviction, and infringes on his First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n<p>In a 78-page court filing, Trump attorneys David Schoen, Bruce Castor, and Michael T. van der Veen argued that the Senate cannot convict a former president, saying the House\u2019s impeachment last month is problematic because it joined several alleged offenses into a single article of impeachment\u2014rather than several articles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the Senate undertakes an impeachment trial of a private citizen, it is acting as judge and jury rather than a legislative body,\u201d his lawyers said in a filing on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s lawyers also dismissed claims that the former president did nothing as protestors breached the Capitol building during the Joint Session of Congress, saying there was a \u201cflurry of activity\u201d in the administration to get more security to the Capitol.<\/p>\n<p>The impeachment \u201cwas only ever a selfish attempt by Democratic leadership in the House to prey upon the feelings of horror and confusion that fell upon all Americans across the entire political spectrum upon seeing the destruction at the Capitol on January 6 by a few hundred people,\u201d Trump\u2019s lawyers wrote.\u00a0\u201cInstead of acting to heal the nation, or at the very least focusing on prosecuting the lawbreakers who stormed the Capitol, the Speaker of the House and her allies have tried to callously harness the chaos of the moment for their own political gain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His lawyers, meanwhile, disputed the assertion that Trump\u2019s \u201cfight like hell\u201d remarks during a rally to supporters incited violence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf the over 10,000 words spoken, Mr. Trump used the word \u2018fight\u2019 a little more than a handful of times and each time in the figurative sense that has long been accepted in public discourse when urging people to stand and use their voices to be heard on matters important to them; it was not and could not be construed to encourage acts of violence,\u201d Trump\u2019s lawyers wrote, arguing that the former president was using \u201cfight\u201d in the metaphorical sense of the word.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo characterize this statement alone as \u2018incitement to insurrection\u2019 is to ignore, wholesale, the remainder of Mr. Trump\u2019s speech that day, including his call for his supporters to \u2018peacefully\u2019 making their \u2018voices heard,&#8217;\u201d they added.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3671311\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/house-impeachment-600x400-1.jpg\" alt=\"house impeachment\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p>House Clerk Cheryl Johnson, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), and Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) walk through the Capitol\u2019s Statuary Hall to deliver the article of impeachment for incitement of insurrection against former President Donald Trump to the Senate floor in Washington on Jan. 25, 2021. (Tasos Katopodis\/Pool\/via Reuters)<\/p>\n<p>On Jan. 6, separately, Trump called on demonstrators to\u00a0\u201cpeacefully and patriotically\u201d make their voices heard.<\/p>\n<p>Democratic impeachment managers led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) are expected to make the argument that Trump was \u201csingularly responsible\u201d for the Capitol breach, saying that the former president should not be able to hold office in the future.<\/p>\n<p>They furthermore alleged in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/democrat-house-impeachment-managers-file-trial-memo-outlining-their-case_3681834.html\">pre-trial brief<\/a> that \u201cafter months of spreading his Big Lie that he won a landslide victory in the 2020 election, leading up to and on January 6, 2021, President Trump summoned, assembled, and incited a violent mob that attacked the Capitol, cost the lives of three police officers and four other people, threatened the Vice-President and Congress, and successfully halted the counting of the Electoral College vote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The impeachment managers are unlikely to convince at least two-thirds of the Senate, which has a 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats. Last month, during a procedural vote, 45 GOP senators voted against holding the trial.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said the trial has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/mkt_app\/trump-impeachment-trial-has-zero-chance-of-conviction-sen-rand-paul_3688214.html\">no chance of success<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate has not yet officially agreed on a framework for the trial, which is slated to start Tuesday. The trial will be presided over by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the president pro tempore of the Senate, rather than Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former President Donald Trump\u2019s lawyers on Monday argued that the House impeachment managers\u2019 article of impeachment against him for allegedly inciting the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6 is &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1892882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5799,5802,3636,4875,5805,3794],"class_list":["post-120867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-constitutionally","tag-flawed","tag-impeachment","tag-lawyers","tag-ploy","tag-trumps"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1892882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}