Key players in the impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump and his defense argued sharply Sunday whether his efforts to get Ukraine to launch investigations to benefit him politically were impeachable offenses that warranted his removal from office.
Trump’s Senate trial formally opened last week and is set to hear opening arguments on Tuesday. But combatants in the political and legal fight over Trump’s fate waged verbal battles across the airwaves on Sunday morning news talk shows in the U.S. that offered a glimpse of the Senate drama the American public will witness in the days ahead.Criminal defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz, one of the team of lawyers defending Trump, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that he will tell the 100 members of the Senate, who are acting as jurors deciding Trump’s fate, that “even if the facts as presented are true, it would not rise to the level of impeachment” to convict Trump and oust him from office.The lawmakers will be deciding whether Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the standard the U.S. Constitution set for removing a president from office. As the trial nears, the Republican-majority Senate remains highly unlikely to convict Trump, a Republican, since a two-thirds vote against Trump would be necessary to oust him from the White House.FILE – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump face reporters during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Sept. 25, 2019.Trump last July asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to launch an investigation of one of his top 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company, and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine sought to undermine Trump’s 2016 campaign.  The phone call between the two leaders happened at the same time Trump was temporarily blocking release of $391 million in military aid Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.Dershowitz argued that Trump’s actions did not amount to criminal conduct. He said that “if my argument prevails” and the Senate decides no impeachable offenses occurred, “There’s no need for witnesses” at Trump’s Senate trial and “the Senate should vote to acquit [Trump] or dismiss” the case against him.FILE – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 3, 2019.Congressman Adam Schiff, the leader of seven House of Representative managers prosecuting the case against Trump, told ABC News’ “This Week” show, “The facts aren’t seriously contested, that the president withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to an ally at war with Russia, withheld a White House meeting that the president of Ukraine desperately sought to establish with his country and with his adversary the support of the United States in order to coerce Ukraine to helping him cheat in the next election.”Schiff added, “They really can’t contest those facts. So the only thing really new about the president’s defense is that they’re now arguing that because they can’t contest the facts that the president cannot be impeached for abusing the power of his office.”On Saturday, both the House lawmakers pushing for Trump’s conviction, and Trump’s defenders, filed legal arguments in the case.The House managers said it was clear that the “evidence overwhelmingly establishes” that Trump is guilty of both charges in the two articles of impeachment he is facing.FILE – President Donald Trump listens to a question during an event on prayer in public schools, in the Oval Office of the White House, Jan. 16, 2020, in Washington.Meanwhile, Trump’s legal team called the impeachment effort against him “a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president.”His lawyers called the impeachment effort “a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months  away.”But Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that heard weeks of testimony about Trump and his aides’ attempts to pressure Ukraine for the Biden investigations, said the White House legal stance is “surprising in that It doesn’t really offer much new beyond the failed arguments we heard in the House.””So the only thing really new about the president’s defense is that they’re now arguing that because they can’t contest the facts that the president cannot be impeached for abusing the power of his office,” Schiff said. “That’s the argument I suppose you have to make if the facts are so dead set against you. You have to rely on an argument that even if he abused his office in this horrendous way that it’s not impeachable. You had to go so far out of the mainstream to find someone to make that argument you had to leave the realm of constitutional law scholars and go to criminal defense lawyers.”FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., signs the resolution to transmit the two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate for trial on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 15, 2020.The Senate has yet to decide whether it will hear witnesses in the impeachment trial, with new testimony opposed by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.Democrats want to subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and others to testify about their knowledge of Trump’s Ukraine actions. Trump eventually released the Ukraine military aid in September after a 55-day delay without Zelenskiy launching the Biden investigations, which Republicans say is proof that Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal — the military aid in exchange for the investigations to help him politically.”We’ll be fighting for a fair trial,” Schiff said. “That is really the foundation on which this all rests. If the Senate decides, if Senator McConnell prevails and there are no witnesses, it will be the first impeachment trial in history that goes to conclusion without witnesses.”He said, “We don’t know what witnesses will be allowed or even if we’ll be allowed witnesses. The threshold issue here is, will there be a fair trial? Will the senators allow the House to call witnesses, to introduce documents. That is the foundational issue on which everything else rests. There is one thing the public is overwhelmingly in support of and that is a fair trial.”One of Trump’s staunchest Senate defenders, Sen. Lindsey Graham, on the “Fox News Sunday” show, called the impeachment effort “a partisan railroad job. It’s the first impeachment in history where there’s no allegation of a crime by the president.”He said if Democrats demand to hear testimony from Bolton, Mulvaney and others, Trump will seek to invoke executive privilege against their testimony to protect the sanctity of private White House conversations.”Clearly to me any president would ask for executive privilege regarding these witnesses,” Graham said, adding that if they were that important to the House case against Trump, Democrats should have sought their testimony during the House investigation.Democrats did seek more testimony from White House aides, but Trump ordered them to not cooperate with the impeachment investigation; several aides complied with Trump’s edict while others did not. Democrats dropped their efforts to compel some testimony out of a fear that it would result in a lengthy legal battle that could have been tied up in U.S. for months.Trump is spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago retreat along the Atlantic Ocean in Florida. Late Saturday, he resumed his almost daily attacks on the Democrats’ impeachment campaign against him, saying on Twitter, “What a disgrace this Impeachment Scam is for our great Country!” “Nancy Pelosi said, it’s not a question of proof, it’s a question of allegations! Oh really?” @JudgeJeanine@FoxNews What a disgrace this Impeachment Scam is for our great Country!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 19, 2020Trump’s Senate impeachment trial is only the third such event in the nearly 2 1/2 centuries of U.S. history. Two other presidents — Andrew Johnson in the mid-19th century and Bill Clinton two decades ago — were impeached by the House but acquitted in Senate trials and remained in office. A fourth U.S. president, Richard Nixon in the mid-1970s, faced almost certain impeachment in the Watergate political scandal, but resigned before the House acted.
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Russia’s Vladimir Putin is denying that he’s planning to retain his grip on power when he relinquishes his country’s presidency in 2024.The 67-year-old Putin dismissed accusations that sweeping constitutional changes he laid out in a speech Wednesday would allow him to retain his grip on a country he’s ruled for 20 years.President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with a man after attending a wreath laying commemoration ceremony for the 77th anniversary since the Leningrad siege was lifted during World War II at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery, Jan. 14, 2020.Speaking Saturday while on a visit to his hometown of St. Petersburg, Putin said he understood peoples alarm but that he doesn’t want Russia to return to the Soviet-era practice of rulers dying in office without a succession plan.“In my view, it would be very worrying to return to the situation of the mid-1980s when heads of state one by one remained in power until the end of their days, [and] left office without having secured necessary conditions for a transition of power,” Putin said.“So, thank you very much, but I think it’s better not to return to the situation of the mid-1980s,” he added.But many of his critics are skeptical of his assurances.They worry Putin’s proposals, the first significant changes to the country’s constitution since it was adopted under Boris Yeltsin in 1993, are designed to ensure he keeps a grip on the levers of power after he leaves the Kremlin.Putin’s term in office is set to end in 2024, and he cannot run again as the constitution prohibits anyone serving more than two consecutive terms.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the State Council in Moscow, Jan. 15, 2020.The proposed constitutional changes he unveiled Wednesday, at this stage still vague, could allow him to retain power as national leader either as prime minister, a maneuver he’s used before to circumvent term limits, chairman of the country’s parliament or as head of a revamped but still ill-defined state council, his critics say.Political foes have dubbed the proposed shake-up a “constitutional coup,” which would see the presidency reduced in importance. Some former Kremlin advisers say none of the powerful factions within the Kremlin or the country’s oligarchs want Putin to go, for fear his departure would trigger internecine warfare within the governing class.In a recent interview with VOA, before Putin’s announcement, one of his former advisers, Gleb Pavlovsky, said that to a certain degree he’s trapped within the system he created. Putin can’t quit for fear that everything will fall apart, Pavlovsky said.While Putin’s proposal has prompted outrage from rights activists, liberals and his political foes, ordinary Russians, even those critical of Putin, seem resigned, with many saying they’d never expected he’d relinquish power in four years’ time.
“I feel indifferent,” Ekaterina, a 28-year-old financial adviser told VOA. “Most of my friends are just making jokes about it” because they feel impotent, she added.In 2011-2012 tens of thousands of people took to the streets following Putin’s return to the presidency for his third term, Ekaterina and others of her age group say they doubt large-scale protests to Putin’s plan will happen now. In August a series of protests were mounted against rigged elections to Moscow’s city council, but they have fizzled.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin, center right, and Kazakhstan’s former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, center left, attend the Victory Day military parade to mark 74 years since the end of World War II, in Red Square in Moscow, May 9, 2019.Some opposition politicians say Putin’s proposals would see Russia gravitate to a Central Asian model of governance. They accuse Putin of wanting to prolong his state leadership by following the model of Kazakhstan, where Nursultan Nazarbayev, left the presidency last year but has maintained his iron grip on his Central Asian country as chairman of an all-powerful Security Council.”It is a complete ideological switch on the part of the ruling class from a Western ideology to something else — an Eastern one or an Ancient Roman one,” said Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think tank.The Russian leader’s “reform” proposals include also abolishing the primacy of international law now enshrined in the country’s current constitution. That possible change is alarming Russia’s beleaguered civil society groups, which are already seeing a tightening of restrictions on their work.
“As a member of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia is bound by international standards on human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law — including democratic elections, protections from arbitrary imprisonment, and freedoms of the media, assembly, and association,” wrote opposition politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza in the Washington Post Friday.Those commitments have long been ignored, “but by establishing the primacy of domestic statutes, the Kremlin intends to free itself from its remaining formal commitments under international law, signaling yet another milestone in its growing isolation,” he said.
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U.S. health officials are at airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York screening passengers traveling from Wuhan, a city in central China, where a viral pneumonia has spread. Michelle Quinn spoke to passengers arriving in San Francisco.
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Activists from all walks of life gathered in Washington Saturday for the fourth Women’s March, calling for greater attention to women’s rights and other social issues. First started on the heels of Donald Trump’s election to the White House, the march has become a rallying cry for larger social change.  VOA’s Ardita Dunellari was at the march where she spoke with participants and has this story.
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Goodbye, your royal highnesses. Hello, life as — almost — ordinary civilians.Prince Harry and wife Meghan will no longer use the titles “royal highness” or receive public funds for their work under a deal that lets the couple step aside as working royals, Buckingham Palace announced Saturday.Releasing details of the dramatic split triggered by the couple’s unhappiness with life under media scrutiny, the palace said Harry and Meghan will cease to be working members of the royal family when the new arrangements take effect in the “spring of 2020.”The radical break is more complete than the type of arrangement anticipated 10 days ago when the royal couple stunned Britain with an abrupt announcement that they wanted to step down. They said they planed to combine some royal duties with private work in a “progressive” plan, but that is no longer on the table.Harry and Meghan will no longer use the titles His Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness but will retain them, leaving the possibility that the couple might change their minds and return sometime in the future.Harry’s late mother, Diana, was stripped of the Her Royal Highness title when she and Prince Charles divorced.They will be known as Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Harry will remain a prince and sixth in line to the British throne.FILE PHOTO: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth departs from St Mary Magdalene’s church on the Sandringham estate in eastern England, Jan. 12, 2020.The agreement also calls for Meghan and Harry to repay 2.4 million pounds ($3.1 million) in taxpayers’ money spent renovating a house for them near Windsor Castle, Frogmore Cottage. The use of public funds to transform the house’s five separate apartments into a spacious single family home for them had raised ire in the British press. They will continue to use Frogmore Cottage as their base in England.The deal came after days of talks among royals sparked by Meghan and Harry’s announcement last week that they wanted to step down as senior royals and live part-time in Canada.The couple’s departure is a wrench for the royal family, and Queen Elizabeth II did say earlier this week that she wished the couple had wanted to remain full-time royals, but she had warm words for them in a statement Saturday.The 93-year-old queen said she was pleased that “together we have found a constructive and supportive way forward for my grandson and his family. Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved members of my family.“I recognize the challenges they have experienced as a result of intense scrutiny over the last two years and support their wish for a more independent life,” Elizabeth said.“It is my whole family’s hope that today’s agreement allows them to start building a happy and peaceful new life,” she added.Newspapers are seen for sale in London, Jan. 9, 2020. In a statement Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, said they are planning “to step back” as senior members of the royal family and “work to become financially independent.Newspapers are seen for sale in London, Jan. 9, 2020. In a statement Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, said they are planning “to step back” as senior members of the royal family and “work to become financially independent.”Despite the queen’s kind words, the new arrangement will represent an almost complete break from life as working royals, especially for Harry. As a devoted Army veteran and servant to the crown, the prince carried out dozens of royal engagements each year,Royal expert and author Penny Junor said the new setup will benefit both sides of the family.“There are no blurred lines. They are starting afresh and they are going with the queen’s blessing, I think it is the best of all worlds,” she said.It is not yet clear whether Harry and Meghan will continue to receive financial support from Harry’s father, Prince Charles, who used revenue from the Duchy of Cornwall to help fund his activities and those of his wife and sons.The duchy, chartered in 1337, produced more than 20 million pounds ($26 million) in revenue last year. It is widely regarded as private money, not public funds, so Charles may opt to keep details of its disbursal private. Much of the royals’ wealth comes from private holdings.Though Harry and Meghan will no longer represent the queen, the palace said they would “continue to uphold the values of Her Majesty” while carrying out their private charitable work.The withdrawal of Harry from royal engagements will increase the demands on his brother, Prince William, and William’s wife, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.Buckingham Palace did not disclose who will pay for the couple’s security going forward. It currently is taxpayer-funded and carried out primarily by a special unit of the Metropolitan Police, also known as Scotland Yard.“There are well established independent processes to determine the need for publicly funded security,” it said.Harry and Meghan have grown increasingly uncomfortable with constant media scrutiny since the birth in May of their son, Archie. They married in 2018 in a ceremony that drew a worldwide TV audience.Meghan joined the royal family after a successful acting career and spoke enthusiastically about the chance to travel throughout Britain and learn about her new home, but disillusionment set in fairly quickly.She launched legal action against a newspaper in October for publishing a letter she wrote to her father. Harry has complained bitterly of racist undertones in some media coverage of his wife, who is biracial.There has also been a breach in the longtime close relationship between Harry and William, a future king, over issues that have not been made public.The couple’s desire to separate from the rest of the family had been the subject of media speculation for months. But they angered senior royals by revealing their plans on Instagram and a new website without advance clearance from the queen or palace officials.Elizabeth summoned Harry, William and Charles, to an unusual crisis meeting at her rural retreat in eastern England in an effort to find common ground.The result was Saturday’s agreement, which is different from Harry and Meghan’s initial proposal that they planned to combine a new, financially independent life with a reduced set of royal duties.It is not known where in Canada the couple plan to locate. They are thought to be considering Vancouver Island, where they spent a long Christmas break, or Toronto, where Meghan filmed the TV series “Suits” for many years.It is not clear what Harry and Meghan’s immigration and tax status will be in Canada, or whether Meghan will follow through on plans to obtain British nationality.
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What we now call soul food originally came out of black culture in the southern United States. At its core, soul food is a hearty, spicy food rich with the calories and protein African Americans needed to make it through long days of hard work, first as slaves on plantations and then after Emancipation working as sharecroppers on farms in the rural south.  But over time soul food has become high cuisine and it’s at the heart of some great Washington, DC, restaurants. VOA’s Unshin Lee reports.
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Here are highlights from the 111-page House Impeachment Brief filed Saturday afternoon.On impeachment: “President Trump has demonstrated his continued willingness to corrupt free and fair elections, betray our national security, and subvert the constitutional separation of powers—all for personal gain.””The Senate should convict and remove President Trump to avoid serious and long-term damage to our democratic values and the Nation’s security.”If the Senate permits President Trump to remain in office, he and future leaders would be emboldened to welcome, and even enlist, foreign interference in elections for years to come.””Unless he is removed from office, he will continue to endanger our national security, jeopardize the integrity of our elections, and undermine our core constitutional principles.”On the abuse of power article of impeachment:”President Trump abused the power of the Presidency by pressuring a foreign government to interfere in an American election on his behalf.””President Trump illegally ordered the Office of Management and Budget to withhold $391 million in taxpayer-funded military and other security assistance to Ukraine.””The evidence is clear that President Trump conditioned release of the vital military assistance on Ukraine’s announcement of the sham investigations.””Overwhelming evidence demonstrates that the announcement of investigations on which President Trump conditioned the official acts had no legitimate policy rationale, and instead were corruptly intended to assist his 2020 reelection campaign.”On the obstruction of justice article of impeachment:”President Trump personally demanded that his top aides refuse to testify in response to subpoenas, and nine Administration officials followed his directive and continue to defy subpoenas for testimony.””The Senate should convict President Trump for his categorical obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry and ensure that this President, and any future President, cannot commit impeachable offenses and then avoid accountability by covering them up.”
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Federal authorities are turning to a new tactic in the escalating conflict over New York City’s so-called sanctuary policies, issuing four “immigration subpoenas” to the city for information about inmates wanted for deportation.”This is not a request — it’s a demand,” Henry Lucero, a senior U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, told The Associated Press. “This is a last resort for us. Dangerous criminals are being released every single day in New York.”Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration said Saturday the city would review the subpoenas.”New York City will not change the policies that have made us the safest big city in America,” spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein said in an email.Mounting frustrationThe development comes days after ICE sent similar subpoenas to the city of Denver, a move that reflected the agency’s mounting frustration with jurisdictions that do not honor deportation “detainers” or provide any details about defendants going in and out of local custody.The subpoenas sent to New York seek information about three inmates — including a man wanted for homicide in El Salvador — who were recently released despite immigration officials requesting the city turn them over for deportation.The fourth subpoena asks for information about a Guyanese man charged this month with sexually assaulting and killing Maria Fuertas, a 92-year-old Queens woman.That case became a flashpoint in the conflict after ICE officials said the city had released the woman’s alleged attacker, Reeaz Khan, 21, on earlier assault charges rather than turn him over for deportation. Khan was charged with murder Jan. 10 and remains in custody.New York City police say they didn’t receive a detainer request for Khan, though ICE insists it was sent. Either way, the city would not have turned him over under the terms of New York’s local ordinance governing how police work with immigration officials.Hours before the subpoenas were issued on Friday, the acting ICE director, Matthew Albence, told a news conference in Manhattan that city leaders had blood on their hands in Fuertas’ death.”It is this city’s sanctuary policies that are the sole reason this criminal was allowed to roam the streets freely and end an innocent woman’s life,” Albence said.’Absolutely shameful’Goldstein said in an email Saturday that “the Trump administration’s attempt to exploit this tragedy are absolutely shameful.”De Blasio has accused ICE of employing “scare tactics” and spreading lies. He said on Twitter this week that the city has passed “common-sense laws about immigration enforcement that have driven crime to record lows.”City officials in Denver said they would not comply with the requests, saying the subpoenas could be “viewed as an effort to intimidate officers into help enforcing civil immigration law.””The documents appear to be a request for information related to alleged violations of civil immigration law,” Chad Sublet, Senior Counsel to the Department of Safety in Denver, wrote in a letter to ICE officials.Court order next?But Lucero, ICE’s acting deputy executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations, said the agency may consult with federal prosecutors to obtain a court order compelling the city’s compliance. “A judge can hold them in contempt,” he told The AP.Meanwhile, ICE is considering expanding its use of immigration subpoenas in other sanctuary jurisdictions.”Like any law enforcement agency, we are used to modifying our tactics as criminals shift their strategies,” Lucero said in a statement. “But it’s disheartening that we must change our practices and jump through so many hoops with partners who are restricted by sanctuary laws passed by politicians with a dangerous agenda.”
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President Donald Trump’s legal team is sending the Senate a fiery response to its impeachment summons, outlining the defenses it expects to use in the upcoming trial.Trump’s Saturday answer to the Senate’s formal impeachment summons calls the two articles of impeachment passed by the House last month “a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president.” The document offers a taste of the rhetoric expected to be deployed by the president’s defenders in the Senate.”This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months away,” the filing states.Two people close to the president’s legal team outlined the filing in advance on the condition of anonymity.Trump on Friday appointed several nationally known lawyers to the team that will defend him in the proceedings, set to open Tuesday afternoon.
 
House Democrats were preparing to outline their case for removing Trump from office in their legal brief due Saturday.FILE – Lev Parnas, associate of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, exits after a bail hearing at the Manhattan Federal Court in New York, Dec. 17, 2019.Democrats on Friday released more information — documents, text messages, audio and photos — turned over by Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. The release included multiple photos of Parnas, a Soviet-born Florida businessman, posing with Giuliani or Trump or Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son.It included messages between Parnas and a staff member for Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., a Trump ally who opposes the president’s impeachment by the House. Parnas appeared to be connecting the staff member to Ukrainian officials who pushed unfounded corruption allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden.The documents also raised more questions about the surveillance and security of former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. In them, an unidentified individual with a Belgian country code appears to describe Yovanovitch’s movements.GAO reportThe document release followed Thursday’s announcement by the Government Accountability Office that the White House violated federal law by withholding congressionally approved security aid to Ukraine, which shares a border with a hostile Russia.In response, the White House disagreed and said it does not have to follow decisions by the accountability office because it is an arm of Congress. White House officials also have noted that Trump eventually sent the $400 million in aid to Ukraine.But the GAO report and Parnas documents intensified the pressure senators have been under to call more witnesses for the trial, a major source of disagreement between Democrats and Republicans that has yet to be resolved. The White House has instructed officials to disregard subpoenas from Congress seeking for them to appear as witnesses or turn over documents or other information.Legal teamTrump on Friday named Ken Starr, the prosecutor whose investigation two decades ago led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, along with former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, to his defense team.The additions bring experience in the politics of impeachment as well as constitutional law to Trump’s made-for-TV legal team. Both Starr and Dershowitz have been fixtures on Fox News Channel, Trump’s preferred television network.FILE – Attorney Kenneth Starr speaks during arguments before the California Supreme Court in San Francisco, California, March 5, 2009.Dershowitz said he will deliver constitutional arguments defending Trump from allegations that he abused his power. Trump is also accused of obstructing Congress as it sought to investigate pressure he applied on Ukraine’s president to announce an investigation into Trump’s political rivals as the president withheld the security aid and a White House meeting as leverage.Trump says he did nothing wrong and argues that Democrats have been out to get him since before he took office.The legal brief from the White House laying out the contours of Trump’s defense was due by noon Monday, and White House attorneys and Trump’s outside legal team had been debating just how political the document should be.Some in the administration had echoed warnings from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that the pleadings must be sensitive to the Senate’s more staid traditions and leave some of the sharper rhetoric exhibited during the House proceedings to Twitter and cable news.Dershowitz is a constitutional expert whose expansive views of presidential powers echo those of Trump. Starr is a veteran of Washington’s partisan battles after leading the investigation into Clinton’s affair with a White House intern. The House impeached Clinton, who then was acquitted at his Senate trial. Trump is expecting the same outcome from the Republican-led chamber.Still, the lead roles for Trump’s defense will be played by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, who also represented Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.Dershowitz sought to play down his role in the case in the hours after he was named to the team, saying he would be present for just about an hour to make the constitutional arguments.”I’m not a full-fledged member of the defense team,” he told “The Dan Abrams Show” on SiriusXM.FILE – Alan Dershowitz arrives at the Manhattan Federal Court in New York, U.S., Sept. 24, 2019.White House lawyers succeeded in keeping Trump from adding House Republican lawmakers to the defense team, but they also advised him against tapping Dershowitz, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions. They’re concerned about the professor’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who killed himself in a New York City jail cell last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.A Fox News host said on the air that Starr would be parting ways with the network as a result of his role on the legal team.Other members of Trump’s legal defense include Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general; Jane Raskin, who was part of the president’s legal team during Mueller’s investigation; Robert Ray, who was part of the Whitewater investigation of the Clintons; and Eric D. Herschmann of the Kasowitz Benson Torres legal firm, which has represented Trump in numerous cases over the last 15 years.Giuliani, a former New York-based federal prosecutor, told The Associated Press the president had assembled a “top-notch” defense team and he was not disappointed at being excluded from it.Giuliani, who many in the White House blame for leading Trump down the path to impeachment by fueling Ukraine conspiracies, had previously expressed interest in being on the legal team. But he said Friday his focus would be on being a potential witness.Trump was impeached by the House in December. Senators were sworn in as jurors Thursday by Chief Justice John Roberts, who will preside over the trial.Starr, Dershowitz controversiesStarr, besides his 1990s role as independent counsel, is a former U.S. solicitor general and federal circuit court judge.More recently, he was removed as president of Baylor University and then resigned as chancellor of the school in the wake of a review critical of the university’s handling of sexual assault allegations against football players. Starr said his resignation was the result of the university’s board of regents seeking to place the school under new leadership following the scandal, not because he was accused of hiding or failing to act on information.Dershowitz’s reputation has been damaged in recent years by his association with Epstein. One of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has accused Dershowitz of participating in her abuse. Dershowitz has denied it and has been battling in court for years with Giuffre and her lawyers. He recently wrote a book, “Guilt by Accusation,” rejecting her allegations.Giuffre and Dershowitz are also suing each other for defamation.
 
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