WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th February, 2021) Former US President Donald Trump's lawyer Bruce Castor urged lawmakers not to trivialize impeachments and warned that the pressure to respond in kind will be enormous once the political pendulum shifts.
Castor was the first to lay out the defense's arguments at the Senate, which started Trump's impeachment trial earlier in the day and was deliberating whether it has a jurisdiction over the case.
"If we go down the road that my very worthy adversary here, [House manager] Mr. [Jamie] Raskin, asks you to go down, the floodgates will open," Castor said. "The political pendulum will shift one day. This chamber and the chamber across the way will change one day. And partisan impeachments will become commonplace... The pressure will be enormous to respond in kind."
Castor called on lawmakers to reverse the tide and preserve impeachments as "the ultimate safety valve" and "the most rare treatment."
"Until the impeachment of [US President] Bill Clinton no one alive had ever lived through a presidential impeachment... Now most of us have lived through three of them," Castor said.
Democrats and some Republicans seek to use the sole Article of Impeachment - the incitement of insurrection - to disqualify Trump from holding public office, including running for president in 2024. The Article of Impeachment alleges that in the months preceding the January 6 incident at the US Capitol, Trump repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the election results were the product of widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American people.
Castor defended Trump's statements as speech protected by the First Amendment, including the speech he gave on January 6 in which he called on his supporters to protest peacefully and patriotically.
"This trial is about trading liberty for the security from the mob. Honestly, no! We can't be thinking about that. We can't possibly be suggesting that we punish people for political speech in this country. If people go and commit lawless acts as a result of their beliefs and they cross the line they should be locked up," he said.
Castor also argued that the Senate lacks jurisdiction over Trump because he holds no public office from which he can be removed.
"Article 1 section 3 says judgments in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold any office of honor, trust, profit under the United States," he said. "What is so hard about that? Which of those words are unclear - shall not extend further than to removal from office? President Trump no longer is in office. The object of the Constitution has been achieved. He was removed by the voters."
Castor added that now that Trump is out of office he could be arrested if there were legal grounds for that.
"There is no opportunity where the President of the United States can run rampant in January, the end of his term, and just go away Scott free. The Department of Justice does know what to do with such people. So far I haven't seen any activity in that direction," he said.
"And not only that. The people, who stormed this building and breached it, were not accused of conspiring with the President," Castor added.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Justice Department said more than 200 defendants have been charged in Federal court in connection with the unrest at the Capitol on January 6.
Upon hearing both sides, the Senate is expected to vote on the constitutionality of the trial. Unless the case dismissed over lack of jurisdiction, the House managers, who act as prosecutors, and Trump's lawyers each will be given 16 hours over two days to lay out their arguments.
The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote for conviction, meaning that at least 17 of the 50 Senate Republicans have to join their Democratic colleagues. Last month, only five of them voted against a procedural motion to dismiss the trial on constitutional grounds, an indication that the impeachment lacks the necessary support.
