Washington — President Trump’s legal team presented the case for his defense in his Senate impeachment trial for a second day as new revelations about the president’s attempts to get Ukraine to investigate his rivals increased pressure on the Senate to allow new witnesses.
On Sunday, The New York Times reported former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in a manuscript of his upcoming book that Mr. Trump explicitly refused to release nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in 2019 unless the country pursued investigations into his political rivals, including the Bidens. The Times reported Bolton had submitted the manuscript to the White House for a standard prepublication review for classified information.
Mr. Trump’s attorneys spent much of the day sidestepping Bolton’s claims, until a presentation by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. He confronted Bolton’s allegations head on, arguing that even if they are true, the president’s actions still don’t rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
“Quid pro quo alone is not a basis for abuse of power,” Dershowitz said. “It’s part of the way foreign policy has been operated by presidents since the beginning of time.”
Earlier in the day, Democrats seized on The New York Times report to accuse the White House of a cover-up and to urge Republican senators to join them in supporting a subpoena for Bolton, who has said he’s willing to testify. Several Republican senators who have been open to hearing new testimony reiterated their view that witnesses should be called, including Mitt Romney and Susan Collins.
Bolton’s reported accusations directly contradict the argument put forward by Mr. Trump’s attorneys, namely that there was no connection between the delay in aid and the president’s requests for investigations. Bolton would be the first official to testify that the president personally connected the two issues.
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