White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, and their whole crew are back to continue the opening arguments in the impeachment defense of Donald Trump. They gave a brief preview on Saturday, which was exactly what you’d expect: lies and attacks. They resume in the wake of reports that former national security adviser John Bolton’s book recounts a conversation with Donald Trump in which Trump explicitly tied military aid to Ukraine investigating his political opponents—exactly what Trump was impeached for—but it’s unlikely that will change the basic lie-and-attack strategy.

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 1:48:47 AM +00:00 · Hunter

If you’re just joining us, Alan Dershowitz is giving a long lecture on how the founders would not want a president impeached for mere abuse of power, despite Alan Dershowitz previously arguing the opposite. He’s trying to put a legal spin on Ken Starr’s argument that there are Too Many Impeachments These Days.

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 1:52:45 AM +00:00 · Hunter

Dershowitz now arguing at length that merely being a “dishonest” leader is not impeachable, which is probably not going to go down well with an already-fuming Trump.

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 1:54:44 AM +00:00 · Hunter

Dershowitz has spent quite a bit of time defending his own complete reversal of opinion on the issues he’s arguing tonight, which does not help Trump but does help Dershowitz as he claws at credibility in the highest-profile television show he’ll ever be on.

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 1:58:58 AM +00:00 · Hunter

Next up: Trump’s legal team will communicate via magic crystal with the Founding Fathers, who will say they agree with Donald Trump in every way. Wait, the crystal broke—so we’ll go with Cipollone, one of the Trump defenders implicated in the very acts that landed Trump here to begin with. He says he’s closing up for the night and promises it won’t take long.

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 2:02:21 AM +00:00 · Hunter

Cipollone lied about this not taking very long. And again, he is ignoring the facts of the case at hand and arguing procedure and Too Many Impeachments These Days. “Imagine if all that energy was being used to solve the problems of the American people.”

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 2:04:02 AM +00:00 · Hunter

“This choice belongs to the American people. They will get to make it months from now.” So the “Constitution” prevents you from removing the traitorous idiot and crook from office. And we’re done.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, and their whole crew are back to continue the opening arguments in the impeachment defense of Donald Trump. They gave a brief preview on Saturday, which was exactly what you’d expect: lies and attacks. They resume in the wake of reports that former national security adviser John Bolton’s book recounts a conversation with Donald Trump in which Trump explicitly tied military aid to Ukraine investigating his political opponents—exactly what Trump was impeached for—but it’s unlikely that will change the basic lie-and-attack strategy.

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:02:14 AM +00:00 · Hunter

A new face in the Trump defense lineup: Robert Ray, who so far is repeating Ken Starr’s arguments that there is too much impeachment these days so everyone should just go home.

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:05:19 AM +00:00 · Barbara Morrill

Robert Ray, the latest Trump lawyer to yap, tell us that Nixon committed a lot of crimes when he wasn’t impeached. 

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:07:23 AM +00:00 · Hunter

“Impeachment was never intended to be a partisan tool,” says Ray, ignoring that the problem here is that one party and only one party believes Corruption is Good Now.

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:13:53 AM +00:00 · Hunter

After the fireworks of Pam Bondi brazenly lying about the basics of Shokin’s corruption, Ray’s return to a long, meandering “and we tied an onion to our belts, which was the style at the time” reminiscing brings things back around to where we were this morning. This impeachment is partisan and improper, because we say so, and Trump’s crimes aren’t serious, like lying about sex, but only attempts to tamper with the fabric of our elections (again.)

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:23:38 AM +00:00 · Hunter

I’m not ignoring Ray, I just once again have no idea how this ties into an actual defense of Trump. He’s instead arguing that a “partisan” impeachment is “illegitimate”, the alleged crime wasn’t serious enough, and the House did it wrong, ad nauseam.

Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:27:04 AM +00:00 · Hunter

Now Ray is again saying the evidence of a quid-pro-quo is “weak,” again completely ignoring the new Bolton revelation that Trump directly told him he was holding up military aid for a Biden investigation—debunking this entire plank of the defense. All of this is now gibberish.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, and their whole crew are back to continue the opening arguments in the impeachment defense of Donald Trump. They gave a brief preview on Saturday, which was exactly what you’d expect: lies and attacks. They resume in the wake of reports that former national security adviser John Bolton’s book recounts a conversation with Donald Trump in which Trump explicitly tied military aid to Ukraine investigating his political opponents—exactly what Trump was impeached for—but it’s unlikely that will change the basic lie-and-attack strategy.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 10:10:02 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

We now have WH lawyer Eric Herschmann, who will take us to dinner. He’s picking up with Bondi’s massive Burisma lies and says he’s going to go through “additional evidence.”

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 10:11:45 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter Bondi isn’t the first of this crew, btw, to purposely invert the truth about Shokin.  Both Sekulow and Cipollone made similar claims on Saturday, and McCarthy did the same in the House. And now it’ll continue with Hershmann who is also apparently going to try to argue that Ukraine intervened in the 2016 election and Mueller investigation was a Dem witchhunt. Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 10:14:19 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

This is just amazing. Continuing the nepotism is bad argument which is just mind-blowingly brazen. How much has Ivanka made off of Chinese patents in the last three years?

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 10:15:10 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Oh, right, on Shokin. 

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Two of the Republican Senators who were most upset about Trump's hold on the aid, Ron Johnson and Rob Portman, also wrote in support of firing the prosecutor that Vice President Biden led US policy on.https://t.co/LwmVlxiNCN

— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) January 27, 2020

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 10:21:57 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

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I'm sorry if the Trump spawn weren't born with the name Trump, Eric would be parking cars, Junior would be selling watches in Times Square and Ivanka would be working the Clinique counter at the Macys in Paramus.

— digby (@digby56) January 27, 2020

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 10:22:48 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

The one name we haven’t heard today? John Bolton.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 10:27:56 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

One thing they’re inadvertently confirming here, with this extended rant against the Bidens—Trump’s entire concern with “corruption” in Ukraine was about the Bidens. But we’re supposed to believe this has absolutely nothing to do with 2020 and Trump didn’t blackmail Zelensky over it at all.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 10:33:29 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Oh god with the “fake” Schiff “transcript” again. They. Have. Nothing. There’s no defense for Trump, none, so they’re just gonna give us a less yelly version of the House maniacs defense.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, and their whole crew are back to continue the opening arguments in the impeachment defense of Donald Trump. They gave a brief preview on Saturday, which was exactly what you’d expect: lies and attacks. They resume in the wake of reports that former national security adviser John Bolton’s book recounts a conversation with Donald Trump in which Trump explicitly tied military aid to Ukraine investigating his political opponents—exactly what Trump was impeached for—but it’s unlikely that will change the basic lie-and-attack strategy.Impeachment trial resumes with more of Trump's lie-and-attack defense: Live coverage #

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:20:29 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

And we’re back. They say they’re going without a break until 6:00 ET. Can’t imagine they have that much, since there’s nothing new here, but if they say so. Sekulow starts with talking about Giuliani. “The role of the president’s lawyer.”

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:22:40 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Hey, how about rather than talking about Giuliani (“national hero, America’s mayor”) he testifies?

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:25:06 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

If we have two and a half hours of fluffing Rudy Giuliani, they’ll get a majority voting to end this thing early just to make it stop. Could maybe even be their strategy.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:26:23 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Never mind that Giuliani has fully admitted there was a Biden investigation quid pro quo.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:28:41 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Good point. 

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If Trump saying to "talk to Rudy" was just a comment, not an instruction, why did Volker and Sondland seek Giuliani's approval for everything they did re: Ukraine—including giving him final say over the statement they drafted announcing investigations? https://t.co/y9WndQL7ty

— The Moscow Project (@moscow_project) January 27, 2020

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:36:16 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Seems like using Rudy was investigating Putin’s theory that it was Ukraine not Russia interfering in the 2016 election—in contravention of every single intelligence agency in the government—is ill-advised.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:38:56 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

And we’re back to Philbin and process, which is turning out to be the last vestige of these scoundrels. Maybe that’s to bore us all into forgetting that Giuliani defense that just happened.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:45:44 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Philbin is very not happy that the House had public hearings. Also not happy that they had private hearings. You get the sense that they are not down with this whole “Congress has oversight over the executive” bit of the Constitution.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:46:22 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Where’s Alan Dershowitz? Weren’t we promised Dersh?

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:49:48 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Here we go again—the House didn’t talk to all the witnesses that would exonerate Trump (never mind that Trump obstructed them) but we can’t talk to new witnesses in the Senate because something something due process.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 8:57:07 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

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This is a nice argument he's making about executive privilege, but as many others have noted, Trump waived it by discussing his conversation with Bolton in tweets made today and likely in others previously.

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) January 27, 2020

(She’s being sarcastic in the “nice argument” part)

White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, and their whole crew are back to continue the opening arguments in the impeachment defense of Donald Trump. They gave a brief preview on Saturday, which was exactly what you’d expect: lies and attacks. They resume in the wake of reports that former national security adviser John Bolton’s book recounts a conversation with Donald Trump in which Trump explicitly tied military aid to Ukraine investigating his political opponents—exactly what Trump was impeached for—but it’s unlikely that will change the basic lie-and-attack strategy.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 6:57:50 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Starr arguing partisanship and process. That’s because he knows as well as anybody Trump did it, it was a crime, and can’t be defended. “Process” is all this scoundrel has got.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 7:00:20 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

BTW, executive privilege isn’t in the Constitution. Maybe it’s in Starr’s special version of the constitution, but not the real one.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 7:04:53 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

He’s arguing that it’s not obstruction of Congress if the AG says it’s not? Ken Starr, meet John Mitchell and Richard Nixon. 

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 7:05:45 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

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Starr is right that DOJ often advises the WH against steps that would weaken the presidency. But there is no way the career people who have advised multiple admins told them to flatly refuse all subpoenas. I know because they said the opposite when I was there.

— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) January 27, 2020

White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, and their whole crew are back to continue the opening arguments in the impeachment defense of Donald Trump. They gave a brief preview on Saturday, which was exactly what you’d expect: lies and attacks. They resume in the wake of reports that former national security adviser John Bolton’s book recounts a conversation with Donald Trump in which Trump explicitly tied military aid to Ukraine investigating his political opponents—exactly what Trump was impeached for—but it’s unlikely that will change the basic lie-and-attack strategy.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 6:56:32 PM +00:00 · Barbara Morrill

Ongoing coverage can be found here.

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 6:13:48 PM +00:00 · Barbara Morrill

Trump attorney Jay Sekulow opens by saying they won’t address “allegations that are not based on evidentiary standards at all.” So, apparently not going to say the B(olton) word today. 

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 6:20:13 PM +00:00 · Barbara Morrill

White House lawyer, Ken Starr, noted expert on blow jobs and covering up sexual assault, is (very slowly) seeming to tell us that House Democrats are stinking liars because they don’t have to take an oath like their Senate colleagues did before they signed off on the cover-up.  

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 6:24:19 PM +00:00 · Barbara Morrill

Starr says we’re in the “age of impeachment.” (Note: there have been three presidents impeached in 200+ years.)

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 6:32:08 PM +00:00 · Barbara Morrill

Yeah, this is today’s argument. There are too many impeachments. And, uh, that’s about it. 

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 6:36:11 PM +00:00 · Laura Clawson

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[archives]Do you think Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr has mostly conducted an impartial investigation to find out if anything illegal occurred, or has mostly conducted a partisan investigation to damage Bill Clinton?Impartial 27%Partisan 64%(CBS/NYT Poll, 9/22-23/98)1/2

— PollingReport.com (@pollreport) January 27, 2020

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 6:37:33 PM +00:00 · Barbara Morrill

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Ken Starr unironically lamenting that impeachments are happening "all too frequently" is so much better with a laugh track pic.twitter.com/qmuHjQNe0G

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 27, 2020

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 · 6:50:53 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

So, just to be clear, Starr is arguing that Clinton was charged with “actual crimes” and Trump isn’t. So lying about a consensual affair is a crime but a president trying to fix a presidential election is not.

Donald Trump’s defense team previewed a very Donald Trump strategy during Tuesday’s procedural debate in the impeachment trial: lie, attack, ignore the facts. Now it’s time for a concentrated blast of that as they begin their opening arguments.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 5:00:17 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Philbin ends his character assault on Schiff, and hands off to Cipollone so he can continue the character attack on Schiff. Cipollone also tosses in claims that Democrats manufactured evidence, along with an obligatory attempt to “cancel the election.”

For some reason, Cipollone thinks that reading completely innocuous parts of the transcript really, really, really slowly makes for more impact.

And we’ve wrapped the coverage of Trump’s attorneys, thankfully, until Monday when things will surely be even more exciting. We’ve not yet heard what Alan Dershowitz has to say about the House managers’ underwear, Ken Starr hasn’t revealed any clothing stains, and Pam Bondi hasn’t accepted a bribe … that we know of. So there’s plenty left to do.

See you then.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 5:03:14 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Cipollone says all they’ve talked about today is “the facts.” Which means talking about overturning an election, attacking the intelligence community, character attacks on Adam Schiff, character attacks on the whistleblower and process arguments about why Congressional subpoenas are “invalid.” Plus support for Trump’s conspiracy theories.

You know. The facts.

And they’re outta there until Monday afternoon.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 5:08:20 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

What the opening of the Trump case illustrated was that they seem to have even less than previously suggested. Which could mean that the pre-puncturing done by the House managers caused some material to be left on the cutting room floor.

Although, the straight up repetition of already debunked nonsense, especially by Jay Sekulow, would indicate that the Trump attorneys wouldn’t shy away from making claims that were already known lies.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 5:09:33 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner Waiting for every Republican to spend time in front of the Fox camera being astonished by all the "new" information. Please folks, form an orderly queue. Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 5:10:29 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

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After listening to the President’s lawyers opening arguments, I have three observations:They don’t contest the facts of Trump’s scheme.They’re trying to deflect, distract from, and distort the truth.And they are continuing to cover it up by blocking documents and witnesses.

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 25, 2020

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 5:12:11 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Start your countdown for when Trump tweets that the ratings for his attorneys were so much better than House managers. Unless he's already done it. Because ... ratings. They're what's important.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 5:15:20 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

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"White House and white people" @JeffreyToobin on the Trump legal team FTW.

— Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) January 25, 2020

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 5:23:15 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

BTW, when Pat Philbin made a claim that there's a connection between the whistleblower and Joe Biden, it may have seemed like a play to the fringes of fringedom. It’s not.

Consider this the warm-up act for an argument that the whole whistleblower complaint was designed to block the investigation into Burisma. Expect that exact claim to be made by Republicans, including Lindsey Graham, who is now calling for an investigation into the Bidens apart from the impeachment. 

Donald Trump’s defense team previewed a very Donald Trump strategy during Tuesday’s procedural debate in the impeachment trial: lie, attack, ignore the facts. Now it’s time for a concentrated blast of that as they begin their opening arguments.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:05:12 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Jay Sekulow, ladies and gentlemen, is reading a FISA court document on an FBI investigation which is all part of a scheme to see how many times he can say “Crossfire Hurricane.” Because man, who wouldn’t want to say Crossfire Hurricane. Crossfire Hurricane. There, I said it again.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:07:28 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Sekulow seems like he’s getting ready to unfold not just an argument to support not just Trump, but the Crowdstrike conspiracy. Which … sure. Let’s do that.

At this point, I honestly can’t think of anything that might move the needle more than letting Trump’s real motivations spill all over the Senate.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:13:30 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner If Donald Trump withheld military assistance to Ukraine because of concern about European "burden sharing" then: - Why didn't they tell Ukraine? - Why didn't they tell Congress? - Why didn't they tell anyone in Europe who might have done something about it? Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:14:17 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

And none of this has a thing to do with the assistance to Ukraine, where Trump had no legal standing to hold the aid without notifying Congress.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:15:36 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Notice that Sekulow keeps quoting words out of context without playing the clips so you can hear either the question or the full response.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:21:10 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

What Sekulow ignores is that Trump twice passed along the full military assistance package to the previous Ukrainian government, despite genuine concerns — raised by the DOD — about the government at that point being corrupt.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:22:46 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Notice what’s in every other hold on military assistance? The word “announced.” When Trump delayed the assistance in other instances, it was done with announcements and notification to Congress.

The aid to Pakistan was cancelled because Pakistan failed the review required under legislation.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:25:41 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Might be worth pointing out that it was Congress that authorized sales of offensive weapons to Ukraine, a process that didn’t begin until after the pro-Russian government that Paul Manafort helped put in place was ousted.

Oh, and that previous Ukraine government who got their aid unhindered? They got that package after the president at that time suspended Ukrainian investigations into Manafort.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:28:56 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Sekulow sits down and hands over to White House deputy assistant attorney Pat Philbin.

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:30:56 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

What might have really worked to show Trump’s concern about burden sharing, would be evidence that during the hold Trump talked to some other country about increasing support for Ukraine.

Or heck, that he made that pitch at any time. So … where is that evidence?

Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 · 4:33:20 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Philbin going through the excuses for why it’s perfectly okay for Trump to deny all evidence and witnesses. Which is kind of pitiful, really.