Watch highlights from Day 2 of Trump's impeachment defense: slamming Biden and dodging Bolton

Ken Starr thrashes impeachment
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/PBS NewsHour)

President Trump got his first full day of defense at his Senate impeachment trial on Monday. Trump's lawyers mostly whistled past inconvenient new revelations that former National Security Adviser John Bolton, in his forthcoming book, badly undermines one of their key arguments against impeachment: that there's no first-hand evidence Trump tied Ukraine military aid to investigations of Joe Biden and other Democratic rivals.

In fact, Trump lawyers Pam Bondi and Eric Herschmann devoted their presentations to attacking former Vice President Biden and his son Hunter. It wasn't until the night's last full presentation, by high-profile defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, that Trump's legal team even mentioned Bolton. And Dershowitz argued that "nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense."

Dershowitz and Trump attorney Ken Starr offered historical and legal arguments about impeachment, with Dershowitz taking the extreme minority legal view that impeachment requires "criminal-like conduct," and abuse of power and obstruction of Congress don't fit that bill. Starr's presentation "was a bizarre spectacle: the man who brought us the last impeachment of a president lecturing the Senate on the dangerous evils of impeachment," writes The New Yorker's Susan Glasser. You can watch some highlights from Trump's defense, curated by PBS NewsHour.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"I'm old enough to remember when, in 1998, Starr produced the most X-rated document ever to be printed under congressional seal, in service of lobbying for [Bill Clinton's] impeachment," Glasser writes. "Now, in 2020, the author of that report is acting as the sanctimonious guardian of congressional dignity, lecturing us all on the floor of the Senate about the unfair, improper charges against Donald Trump? Within seconds of opening his mouth on the Senate floor, Starr had his liberal critics — and lots of non-liberals, too — sputtering with outrage."

Still, Glasser adds, "in the end Starr's comments, trolling as they were, seemed inconsequential and destined to be quickly forgotten," at least compared to Bolton's bombshell. If the outcome of Trump's trial seems predetermined, Bolton's first-hand report of a quid pro quo might at least convince four Republicans to ensure witness testimony.

Trump's team had some factual errors in their presentation. The Associated Press tackles a few of them, and you can watch CNN's Jake Tapper fact-check some others — and Jeffrey Toobin denounce Bondi and Herschmann's "parade of lies" about Joe Biden — below. Peter Weber

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.