Trump’s Impeachment Brief Is a Howl of Rage
Over the weekend, as the Senate prepared for the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, the newly appointed House impeachment managers and the president’s newly appointed legal team both filed their initial legal briefs.
At least, one of them was a legal brief. The other read more like the scream of a wounded animal.
The House managers’ brief is an organized legal document. It starts with the law, the nature and purposes of Congress’s impeachment power, then walks through the evidence regarding the first article of impeachment, which alleges abuse of power, and seeks to show how the evidence establishes the House’s claim that President Trump is guilty of this offense. It then proceeds to argue that the offense requires his removal from office.
The brief then rinses and repeats the exercise with respect to the second article of impeachment, which deals with alleged obstruction of Congress. It concludes: “President Trump has betrayed the American
