Trump Should Testify for His Senate Impeachment Trial, Democrats Say

(Bloomberg) -- House impeachment managers want former President Donald Trump to testify under oath about his conduct on Jan. 6 when a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

The response of Trump’s lawyers to the House’s single article of impeachment disputed “factual allegations” in the charge and put “critical facts at issue,” the lead impeachment manager, Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, said in a letter to Trump released Thursday.

The letter requested Trump’s testimony either before or during the Senate impeachment trial, set to begin Tuesday. Trump was given until 5 p.m. Friday to respond.

“If you decline this invitation, we reserve any and all rights, including the right to establish at trial that your refusal to testify supports a strong adverse inference regarding your actions (and inaction) on January 6, 2021,” the letter says.

Trump impeachment lawyers Bruce L. Castor Jr. and David Schoen and Trump adviser Jason Miller didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Raskin said the initial impeachment answer that Trump’s attorneys filed on Tuesday disputed several facts about the former president’s actions on Jan. 6, including the charge that the former president spurred the violent assault on the Capitol when he told his supporters at a rally beforehand that “if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

“You have thus attempted to put critical facts at issue notwithstanding the clear and overwhelming evidence of your constitutional offense,” Raskin said in the letter. “In light of your disputing these factual allegations, I write to invite you to provide testimony under oath.”

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Raskin said in his letter there’s no doubt that Trump can testify, noting that former presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton both provided testimony while in office and that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled Trump was not immune from legal process while serving as president.

“Indeed, whereas a sitting president might raise concerns about distraction from their official duties, that concern is obviously inapplicable here,” Raskin said. “We therefore anticipate your availability to testify.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a close Trump ally, said it would be ”just a nightmare for the country” if the former president agreed to testify. He dismissed the letter from the impeachment managers as a “political showboat” and said he hopes Trump doesn’t comply.

”Obviously, it’s a political ploy on their part,” Graham said of the request. “They didn’t call him in the House.”

The House voted to impeach Trump Jan. 13 on a single charge of inciting an insurrection related to his attempts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s Nov. 3 victory with baseless claims that the election was stolen. That culminated in the Jan. 6 rally where he spoke before a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of Electoral College votes.

Trump’s legal team is arguing that the Senate has no constitutional authority to hold an impeachment trial now that he’s out of office, and that his speech to the crowd on Jan. 6 was protected by the First Amendment. Trump’s rights also were violated by the snap impeachment, his attorneys said in their filing.

“There was thus no legal or moral reason for the House to act as it did,” the lawyers said in their 14-page reply. “Political hatred has no place in the administration of justice anywhere in America, especially in the Congress of the United States.”

Raskin and the other eight House impeachment said in their almost 80-page brief filed Tuesday that the trial is constitutional because Trump was still in office when he was impeached by the House, and he can’t escape a trial because he left office. They also rejected claims that the impeachment violates Trump’s free speech and due-process rights.

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