Pro-Trump law professor seizes spotlight as Bolton battle boils over
Alan Dershowitz, an attorney for President Donald Trump, at the Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday. Credit: Senate TV via AP
By any deals necessary
President Donald Trump's defense-team celebrity, Alan Dershowitz, made an unexpected claim Wednesday. In the GOP-controlled Senate impeachment trial, he declared: "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment."
“Every public official I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” said the famed Harvard law professor emeritus.
The lead House impeachment manager, Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), warned: “If you say you can’t hold a president accountable in an election year where they’re trying to cheat in that election, then you are giving them carte blanche."
Schiff posed a hypothetical: Would it be OK had former President Barack Obama told the Russian ambassador that he'd drop support for Ukraine if the Kremlin did him a favor and dug up dirt on GOP opponent Mitt Romney?
This part of the trial, resuming Thursday, allows senators on both sides of the aisle to raise specific points by submitting questions read aloud by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Newsday's Tom Brune highlights the takeaways.
The format has allowed them to wrangle anew over Joe and Hunter Biden, ex-national security adviser John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani's role, Trump's rejection of subpoenas, the timing of Ukraine security aid, conspiracy theories and the suppression of a whistleblower complaint, among other points.
With the Senate majority still predisposed to acquit, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a House impeachment manager, said: “There is in fact overwhelming evidence that the president withheld the military aid directly to get a personal political benefit, to help his individual political campaign."
Bolton boomerang
Earlier in the day, Schiff easily blew up a plainly false statement tweeted by Trump two days before: "The Democrat controlled House never even asked John Bolton to testify. It is up to them, not up to the Senate!"
Did the House invite Bolton? "Of course," Schiff said. "He refused." Others did not, including National Security Council officials Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.
Trump's new 'sir' story
Trump tweeted that Bolton "begged” him for the job, "which I gave him despite many saying 'Don’t do it, sir,' takes the job, mistakenly says 'Libyan Model' on T.V., and many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?"
When someone is quoted as saying "sir" during a Trump recollection, it often proves apocryphal.
Bolton, of course, has let it be known in a still-unpublished book that Trump told him he would tie Ukraine aid to a corruption probe involving the Bidens. Former White House chief of staff John Kelly said he believes Bolton.
Throwing the book at him
White House officials say Bolton's tell-all mustn't be published until classified material is removed.
“Under federal law and the nondisclosure agreements your client signed as a condition for gaining access to classified information, the manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information,” states a letter to the former UN ambassador's lawyer, dated Jan. 23.
But the book, scheduled for release in March, may prove to be the main source of Bolton's side of the story. On Wednesday night, the White House and leading Senate Republicans pushed to prevent the presentation of witnesses and wrap up the proceedings.
Meet your new NAFTA
Trump on Wednesday signed into law a significantly updated version of the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.
The pact was negotiated with Mexico and Canada by the White House trade team and amended in Congress by the House Democrats.
The official name is the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.
“For the first time in American history, we have replaced a disastrous trade deal that rewarded outsourcing with a truly fair and reciprocal trade deal that will keep jobs, wealth and growth right here in America,” Trump boasted in his prepared remarks.
The deal could assist U.S. dairy farming and various agricultural exports, and it rolls back NAFTA's widely criticized arbitration system for corporations involved in cross-border trade.
Trump excluded Democrats from the signing ceremony.
What else is happening:
- Trump so far allows his health officials to do the talking about the Wuhan coronavirus as the outbreak sends stocks tumbling, disrupts travel and stokes fears about a global pandemic, Politico reports.
- Attorneys for Michael Flynn, the president's former national security adviser, are attacking his previous lawyers in an effort to void his plea deal.
- Lev Parnas, the indicted former Trump backer, told The Washington Post from outside the Senate trial: “The president knew everything that was going on in Ukraine. There was many quid pro quos.”
- Joe Biden plans to launch a preemptive verbal attack Thursday in Iowa on Trump, who is holding a rally in the state to foul the waters for Democrats days before their caucus.
- Another voter went head-to-head with Biden in a viral video.
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) asked in the marathon impeachment session why it wouldn't be considered bribery for Trump to have proposed his deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), also at the trial, asked why anything Trump says in his defense should be believed.
- A Politico/Morning Consult poll found that 57% of respondents said Trump should not be allowed to invoke the powers of the presidency to block certain witnesses in the impeachment trial.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
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