Donald Trump’s attorneys, in their first formal response to the impeachment charge against the former president, argued his upcoming Senate impeachment trial is unconstitutional and asked for the case to be dismissed.
Trump’s team argues in the 14-page Tuesday filing that remarks Trump made about the election were protected by free speech and denied he played any part in inciting the deadly attack at the U.S. Capitol that left multiple people dead Jan. 6.
“The Senate lacks jurisdiction to remove from office a man who does not hold office,” the filing states, calling the case “moot.” “In the alternative, the 45th President respectfully requests the Senate acquit him on the merits of the allegations raised in the article of impeachment.”
Trump’s attorneys argue that along with the Senate not having the constitutional grounds to hold an impeachment trial for a former president, the House’s impeachment article charging him with inciting an insurrection was improperly drafted. They pointed out the House skipped hearings and took only a week to impeach him after the attack at the Capitol.
“The House of Representatives deprived the 45th President of due process of law in rushing to issue the Article of Impeachment by ignoring it own procedures and precedents going back to the mid-19th century,” the filing states.
Trump’s lawyers do not cite false claims about election fraud as a defense, but the legal brief does make references to Trump’s complaints about the balloting, a hint that the baseless conspiracies could come up at his trial.
“It is admitted that President Trump addressed a crowd at the Capitol ellipse on January 6, 2021 as is his right under the First Amendment to the Constitution and expressed his opinion that the election results were suspect, as is contained in the full recording of the speech,” the brief says.
The filing comes just days after Trump split from five members of his expected legal team and hired David Schoen, a criminal defense attorney who works in Alabama and New York, and Bruce Castor Jr., a former district attorney in Pennsylvania, to lead his defense.
Trump and his first set of lawyers parted ways over trial strategy over the weekend. The former president wanted to emphasize “voter fraud” issues during the trial, said a person familiar with the legal discussions. But the original attorneys wanted to stress that the Senate should not hold a trial of a former officeholder, and that Trump’s comments during a Jan. 6 rally did not incite the mob that led a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.
USA TODAY
