The New York Times :
Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell reached an agreement for the rules of a swift trial. Former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers asserted in a new filing that Mr. Trump deserved no blame for the conduct of a “small group of criminals.”
Trump’s lawyers deny incitement and urge a dismissal of the case as Senate leaders agree on trial rules.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, his Republican counterpart, reached an agreement on rules for the trial.
Donald J. Trump’s lawyers on Monday denounced the impeachment case against him as partisan “political theater,” arguing on the eve of the Senate’s trial that he bore no responsibility for the deadly assault on the Capitol and that trying a former president at all was unconstitutional.
In a 78-page brief submitted to the Senate, the lawyers asserted that Mr. Trump’s speech just before the attack “did not direct anyone to commit unlawful actions,” and that he deserved no blame for the conduct of a “small group of criminals” who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6 after he had urged them to “fight like hell” against his election loss. They also insisted that the Senate “lacks jurisdiction” to try him at all because he was now a private citizen, calling such an effort “patently ridiculous.”The arguments constituted Mr. Trump’s first sustained defense since the violence of Jan. 6 and came on the same day that Senate leaders agreed to rules of the trial in a bipartisan fashion. The brief concluded with the lawyers urging senators to promptly dismiss the single, bipartisan “incitement of insurrection” charge when the trial convened Tuesday.
In a 78-page brief submitted to the Senate, former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers put forward their first sustained legal defense since Mr. Trump was impeached by the House for the second time.
“This impeachment proceeding was never about seeking justice,” wrote the lawyers, Bruce L. Castor Jr., David I. Schoen and Michael T. van der Veen. “Instead, this was only ever a selfish attempt by Democratic leadership in the House to prey upon the feelings of horror and confusion that fell upon all Americans across the entire political spectrum upon seeing the destruction at the Capitol on Jan. 6 by a few hundred people.”
The defense’s road map arrived as the rules and timeline for the trial came into sharper focus on Monday. Top Senate leaders reached a bipartisan agreement for an exceedingly swift proceeding that would begin on Tuesday with up to four hours of debate followed by a vote on the constitutionality question.
Because Mr. Trump is the first ex-president ever to be subject to an impeachment trial, the constitutionality question has loomed over the proceedings. Republicans, in particular, have embraced it to justify a speedy acquittal.
Legal scholars, including prominent conservatives, argue that the founders never intended to exempt someone like Mr. Trump from trial – a president who was impeached while in office but left before senators could judge him. They note that the Senate voted in the 19th century to try a former war secretary, and can do so now for a president who is no longer in office.
The House impeachment managers, echoed that argument in their own five-page memo filed on Monday rebutting Mr. Trump’s effort to dismiss the charge.
“Presidents swear a sacred oath that binds them from their first day in office through their very last,” they wrote. “There is no ‘January Exception’ to the Constitution that allows presidents to abuse power in their final days without accountability.”
They were just as blunt about Mr. Trump’s more substantive defenses: “To call these responses implausible would be an act of charity,” they wrote.
The House impeachment managers filed a five-page memo rebutting former President Donald J. Trump’s effort to dismiss the charge against him.
Neither party has much interest in allowing a proceeding, the second impeachment trial of Mr. Trump in just over a year, drag on. Republican leaders worry that days of intense focus on the former president’s mendacious campaign to overturn his election loss could further cleave their party. And for Democrats now in control of Congress and the White House, the proceeding threatens to complicate Mr. Biden’s attempts to quickly pass a nearly $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill.
If a simple majority of senators agree to move forward after Tuesday’s debate, as expected, the prosecution and defense would have up to 16 hours each to present their cases starting at noon on Wednesday. The trial was expected to break Friday evening and reconvene on Sunday to honor the Jewish Sabbath at the request of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, but it was later withdrawn, meaning the proceeding will likely continue straight into the weekend.
Either way, it could conclude as early as next week, faster than any presidential impeachment trial in American history.
