By Michael Hernandez
The legal team of President Donald J. Trump gave on Monday in the U.S. Senate chamber: 10 reasons why Senators need to reject the Articles of Impeachment on Wednesday afternoon following the 51-49 Friday vote (with Republican Senator Mitt Romney from Utah and Republican Senator Susan Collins from Maine voting with Senate Democrats) not to extend the Senate trial with additional witnesses. A summary of the 10 reasons to reject the Articles of Impeachment are as follows:
Ken Starr:
- No full and fair disclosure of evidence or of facts.
- No fundamental fairness or due process—the House ignored its own rules and didn’t allow counsel for the President or the minority House members to call witnesses and cross-examine witnesses that only Democrats called.
- No level of high crime established in which to impeach the President.
Starr said: “Did the House Judiciary Committee carefully gathered facts and assessed those facts before they made their conclusions or did they rush to justice? Did the House majority persuade the American people? Did the House win over a consensus of the American people? Would I cast my vote to convict and remove a President—when not one person of the minority party; the party of Lincoln was not persuaded to partake in the same vote.”
Patrick Philbin:
- Began impeachment inquiry without a vote in the House—unprecedented in American history.
- House violated every principle of due process.
- The House is going against separation of powers—when they refused to allow the President executive privilege over the subpoenas of his closest advisors—which then becomes an abuse of power by Congress.
Jay Sekulow:
- Partisan impeachment motivated by those who wished to impeach the President prior to his even taking office as announced by the Washington Post on Jan. 20, 2017 when they wrote: “The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun” (20 minutes after he was sworn in as 45th President).
- This is not bipartisan as reflected by joint congressional actions on:
- The Interdict Act (1/10/18);
- Farm Bill (12/20/18); and
- First Step Act (12/21/18).
- This is a policy dispute.
Sekulow said: “The bottom line is that the president’s opponents don’t like this president or his policies and they objected that he did not rely on the advice of his unelected bureaucrats. All we have is policy disputes. If you don’t like the president’s policy you can vote for another candidate. The answer is elections not impeachment. The president is elected by the American people.”
Pat Cipollone:
- American people are tired of investigations concerning the President which they view as efforts “to bully the President.”
Cipollone said: “These investigations are a waste of tax dollars and a waste of Americans time—most of all there is an opportunity cost of what you can be doing working with the president to achieve things on behalf of the American people instead of endless investigations, endless false attacks.
“We believe the American people should choose their president. This president is eager to go before the American people in the upcoming election. He has faith in the American people—this is where the founders put the power. The president has done nothing wrong. These type of impeachments must come to an end. Vindicate the president. It is the right thing to do. We must end the era of impeachment.”
Michael Hernandez, Co-Founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service; editor of the History Makers Report and founder of History Makers International—a community nonprofit serving youth and families in Ventura County, is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. He has worked 25 years as a middle school teacher in Monrovia and Los Angeles Unified School Districts. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted by email at [email protected].
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