Trump Defense Memo Is Wrong About High Crimes and Obstruction
In 110 pages, the president’s legal team makes numerous mistakes about the Constitution.
Not getting the best legal advice.
Photographer: Al Drago/BloombergPresident Donald Trump’s lawyers have filed a 110-page memorandum sketching out the defenses they intend to raise at his impeachment trial. Overall, it’s a pretty poor showing. The memo includes some political posturing. It also contains specious claims to the effect that Trump did nothing wrong on his July 25, 2019 phone call. The memo’s centerpiece, however, is a handful of dubious legal arguments about why his impeachment is supposedly illegitimate. There’s nothing here to convince Democrats; and precious little that would give Republicans the cover some may want to vote against removing Trump from office.
The first and least absurd legal argument is that Trump can’t be impeached for abuse of power — the high crime he’s charged with in the first article of impeachment. According to this theory, the words “high crimes and misdemeanors” in the Constitution require some specific previously established crime. The absence of such a crime, say the lawyers, means the articles of impeachment are facially inadequate and invalid.