MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th December, 2019) Former US Vice President and current presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Saturday that there was no legal grounds for him to be subpoenaed to testify before the Senate in the impeachment trial of incumbent President Donald Trump, describing the process as being "about Trump's conduct, not mine."
Earlier this month, Biden said that he would not voluntarily appear before the Senate within Trump impeachment case, saying his comments would only distract the public discourse from Trump's misconduct. On Friday, he reiterated it in an interview with Des Moines Register, triggering a wave of criticism among public and media.
"I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial. That is the point I was making yesterday and I reiterate: this impeachment is about Trump's conduct, not mine," Biden said on Twitter.
He further suggested that subpoenas be rather sent to the White House for Trump to explain the situation around his call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that has triggered the impeachment process.
On December 18, the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, as he allegedly attempted to pressure Kiev to dig into Biden and his son Hunter for corruption-link misdeeds in exchange for military aid during the call with Zelenskyy.
Hearings at the Senate are the next step of the impeachment process. Impeachable crimes under Article 2, Section 4 of the constitution include "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist papers would later clarify high crimes and misdemeanors as "those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust."
If two-thirds of senators vote to convict, the president is removed from office. It is at this stage that all previous impeachment inquiries got stalled, chiefly because votes were split along party lines. The Senate is presently dominated by the Republicans and none has spoken in favor of impeachment so far.
