On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump’s lawyers Bruce L. Castor Jr., and David Schoen released Trump’s answer to the Democrats’ article of impeachment accusing him of “incitement of insurrection.” Trump’s response breaks the Democrats’ impeachment article into eight separate allegations and responds to each claim. In a nutshell, the former president argues that it is unconstitutional for the Senate to remove a president when he has already left office and that he is innocent of the Democrats’ charges.
Trump asks the Senate to “dismiss Article I: Incitement of Insurrection against him as moot, and thus in violation of the Constitution, because the Senate lacks jurisdiction to remove from office a man who does not hold office. In the alternative, the 45th President respectfully requests the Senate acquit him on the merits of the allegations raised in the article of impeachment.”
The Senate already voted to take up the impeachment, with five Republican senators joining 50 Democratic senators in holding the matter constitutional. However, 45 Republican senators voted not to hold the trial, given constitutional concerns. This vote signified that the Senate is not likely to convict Trump.
The former president makes a few extremely salient arguments against the Democrats’ impeachment article. In addition to the claim that the Senate cannot convict a former president on impeachment, Trump argues that the Democrats violated his free speech and due process rights in rushing to impeach him and that the article of impeachment is deceptively drafted in an unfair manner. Trump also claims that disqualifying him from office would constitute a “bill of attainder,” which has been broadly interpreted to mean a legislative act against a class of people that inflicts punishment on them without a judicial trial.
Trump argues the article of impeachment is “facially and substantively flawed, and otherwise unconstitutional, and must be dismissed with prejudice.”
The president’s responses
Trump splits the article of impeachment into eight claims, providing a response to each one.
His first response claims that the impeachment power does not apply to him because he is no longer president. “The constitutional provision requires that a person actually hold office to be impeached. Since the 45th President is no longer ‘President,’ the clause ‘shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for…’ is impossible for the Senate to accomplish, and thus the current proceeding before the Senate is void ab initio as a legal nullity that runs patently contrary to the plain language of the Constitution.”
Trump also argues that the Constitution does not allow the Senate to disqualify a president from future office unless that president has first been removed from office due to impeachment. “Since removal from office by the Senate of the President is a condition precedent which must occur before, and jointly with, ‘disqualification’ to hold future office, the fact that the Senate presently is unable to remove from office the 45th President whose term has expired, means that Averment 1 is therefore irrelevant to any matter before the Senate.”
Importantly, Trump denies ever having “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.” He also denies ever having “engaged in a violation of his oath of office.”
read full article here: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/02/02/trump-lawyers-claim-impeachment-is-a-legal-nullity-n1422577
Read President Trumps FULL Responses here: https://www.45office.com/assets/uploads/general/45th-presidents-answer-to-article-of-impeachment-final.pdf
Replies
I don't want to be a stickler, but could they not have checked the spelling on this important document? The document addresses "The Honorable, the Members of the Unites States Senate". This is the "United States Senate" with a "D" at the end of "United" not with an "S". I am a proud American and I love that we are still officially the "United States of America", a name that I want to see spelled and honore correctly at all times but especially by people who claim they are at least as patriotic is I am.
This spelling error is kind of embarrassing but it won't matter much since enough Republican Senators will acquit Trump no matter what.
I am with Donal J Trump 100% if I was Trump I would sue all of them to trillion dollars so they can step down out of office.
Agreed
Folks,
I meet someone this weekend that told me we should move on. I told him we shold never move on, never forget and fight like hell for this country to support good people in office.
TRUE, THE ACTUAL OUTRIGHT LIES, AS A MATTER OF CASE LAW, WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW, WE HAVE A RIGHT TO REPLACE GOVERNMENT, THEY SERVE AT OUR PLEASURE THE DEMORATS KNOW THIS AND HAS STATIONED PERMANANT MILITARY TO KEEP US OUT OF WHERE WE HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE, SPEAK, AND UNLIKE THIS SHAM IMPEACHMENT, WHERE NEVER BEEN HEARD OF BEFORE, THE JUDGE, AND JURY IS ALSO THE ONLY WITNESSES AND.... THEY LIED. I SAW A CREATED VIDEO THAT HAS A STATEMENT TO AND BY TRUMP TELLING THE PROUD BOYS TO FIGHT, YET THE CAREFULLY EDITED VIDEO HAS TAKEN ALL THE IDENTIFIED ANTFA OUT OF AND PELOSIS FAN JOHN SULLIVAN MAKING WAVES IN AND NEAR PELOSIS OFFICE HIM BEING BLM. WE HAVE A RIGHT TO, AND WE SHOULD, BECAUSE OF OUR COURTS EXIST TO DAMAGE THE INNOCENT AND TAKE FROM THEM EVERYTHING THE CAN.
ITS ABOUT THE WAY I USED TO HEAR SOME CASES AND DID TWO IN THE LAST YEAR, THAT DON'T BE INTEMIDATED, AS YOUR LAWYER USUALLY SELLS YOU OUT AND GO RIGHT AFTER THE LIES THE GOVERNMENT IS TELLING AND THEIR ZERO CREDIBILITY. HERE IT SO DAMN ODD THAT THERE ARE NOT REPLACEMENT POLITICIANS BECAUSE THEY ARE ALLEGED WANT TO BE VICTIMS AND ALSO PERJURERS AND THEN THEY QUICKLY APPOINTED THE OLD GUY WHEN JOHN ROBERTS WOULD NOIT SIT ON THIS ILLEGAL ACTION IN ABSENCE OF CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY.