Trump’s Lawyers Push To Have Impeachment Dismissed | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the LifeZette. The author of this post is James Samson.

    Lawyers representing former President Donald Trump filed a brief on Monday arguing that the Senate should quickly dismiss the impeachment article filed against him when his trial begins later this week.

    The 78-page document is a more detailed version of the arguments presented in a filing last week from David Schoen and Bruce Castor, who are representing Trump. They are arguing that Trump's post-presidency trial is unconstitutional, and that the former president's speech before the Capitol riots last month is protected by the First Amendment.

    In their brief, the lawyers accused Democrats of trying to "silence a political opponent and a minority party" through a "brazen political act," arguing the second impeachment proceedings against the former president failed to give him due process.

    "The Article of Impeachment presented by the House is unconstitutional for a variety of reasons, any of which alone would be grounds for immediate dismissal," they wrote. "Taken together, they demonstrate conclusively that indulging House Democrats hunger for this political theater is a danger to our Republic, democracy and the rights that we hold dear."

    Schoen and Castor went on to claim that the riots were planned prior to January 6 "and therefore had nothing to do" with Trump's speech.

    "Of the over 10,000 words spoken, Mr. Trump used the word 'fight' a little more than a handful of times and each time in the figurative sense that has long been accepted in public discourse when urging people to stand and use their voices to be heard on matters important to them; it was not and could not be construed to encourage acts of violence," they said.

    "The real truth is that the people who criminally breached the Capitol did so of their own accord and for their own reasons, and they are being criminally prosecuted," the lawyers added, citing right-wing website The Gateway Pundit to support the claim.

    House Democrats have already fired back to reject these arguments in a brief of their own.

    "The House states that each and every allegation in the Article of Impeachment is true, and that any affirmative defenses and legal defenses set forth in the Answer are wholly without merit," the nine impeachment managers wrote, according to The Hill. "Presidents swear a sacred oath that binds them from their first day in office through their very last. There is no 'January Exception' to the Constitution that allows Presidents to abuse power in their final days without accountability."