Trump's Legal Team Opened Their Impeachment Defense With a Blizzard of Lies

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/01/trumps-legal-team-opened-their-impeachment-defense-with-a-blizzard-of-lies/

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Trump’s Legal Team Opened Their Impeachment Defense With a Blizzard of Lies
“The president did absolutely nothing wrong.”
Dan Friedman


President Donald Trump’s lawyers launched their defense Saturday morning with a blizzard of false claims.

It started with the president’s critical July 25th call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. White House Deputy Counsel Michael Purpura referred repeatedly to how what he called “the actual transcript” and “the real transcript” of this call led to an investigation that resulted in Trump’s impeachment. But the document Purpura quoted is not a transcript. It is a “memorandum of telephone conversation,” which means that it reflects the memories of aides who listened in, but may exclude significant parts of Trump and Zelensky’s conversation. Purpura should know the difference.

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Trump’s lawyers also rolled out the litany of their favorite old arguments. They noted that “security assistance flowed” to Ukraine in September without Zelensky announcing the investigations Trump wanted. The release of the aid, of course, only came after a whistleblower complaint drew intense media scrutiny. As House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of Democrats’ impeachment managers, memorably put it: The Trump administration released the aid because “they got caught.” Trump’s lawyers simply pretended the release of the aid came without public pressure. Purpora also argued that Trump had increased lethal US support for Ukraine, an argument that overlooks the president’s alleged subverting of that very policy to benefit his presidential campaign.

But the attorneys real argument is more basic. “The president did absolutely nothing wrong,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, said in his opening remarks on Saturday. That’s what they’re going with when the next phase of the White House defense begins Monday afternoon.