president’s defense making closing arguments

The Senate impeachment trial has resumed. Refresh this page for updates.

WASHINGTON – Ken Starr, a member of President Donald Trump’s defense team, suggested Monday that senators should take into account that the House impeached Trump largely along party lines. 

The House, he said, has the sole power to impeach a president, but House Democrats should have spent more time on their investigation to persuade Republicans to join them.

Starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, said the House vote to investigate President Richard Nixon was 410 to 4. The vote to investigate Clinton was supported by 31 of his fellow Democrats. But none of Trump’s fellow Republicans joined Democrats in authorizing the inquiry or impeaching him.

“They’ve got the power, but that doesn’t mean anything goes,” Starr told senators. “The question fairly to be asked: why cast my vote to convict and remove the president of the United States, when not a single member of the president’s party – the party of Lincoln – was persuaded at any time in the process.”

– Bart Jansen

White House attorney: acquit Trump, let voters decide

White House counsel Pat Cipollone said the only appropriate result in the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump is to acquit him and let voters decide in November whether to keep him in office.

“The key conclusion, the only conclusion, based on the evidence and the articles of impeachment themselves and the Constitution, is that you must vote to acquit the president,” Cipollone said. “At the end of the day, this is an effort to overturn the results of one election and to try to interfere in the coming election that begins today in Iowa.”