MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Trump could be acquitted on Friday of the impeachment trial
US Senator John Barrasso, said it was possible the trial could end on Friday without Democrats achieving their goal of having witnesses called to testify Democratic push to force Republicans to accept witnesses at Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the US Senate appeared to be flagging on Wednesday, raising the possibility the President could be acquitted as early as Friday.
As senators spent the day posing questions to both the Trump legal team and the Democratic managers of the trial, the White House objected to the planned publication of a book by former national security adviser John Bolton in which he is said to have depicted Mr. Trump as playing a central role in pressuring Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden.
US Senator John Barrasso, the No. 3 Republican in seniority, said it was possible the trial could end on Friday without Democrats achieving their goal of having witnesses called to testify.
“The momentum is clearly in the direction of moving to final judgment on Friday. That vote will be Friday. We still have a couple members who said they want to listen to the answers to questions, but that's where the momentum is,” Barrasso said.
Asked when on Friday the vote might take place to settle the debate over witnesses and move to either acquit or convict Trump, Barrasso said probably Friday afternoon or late that day.
Other Republican senators were predicting a similar outcome in conversations with reporters during breaks in the trial on Wednesday.
Democrats have sought to persuade at least four Republican senators to vote with them in favor of witnesses to assure a majority vote in the Republican-controlled 100-seat Senate. The Democratic-led House of Representatives approved the two articles of impeachment in December.
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Read all comments“Don’t Be Confused by Trump’s Defense. What He Is Accused of Are Crimes.
Feb 03rd, 2020 - 10:56 am 0President Trump has been accused of a crime. Two in fact: “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress.”
But many crimes aren’t written down in codes. Crimes derived from the “common law” — the body of law developed from judicial opinions and legal treatises rather than statutes — have been a staple of American law for centuries. Today in many states, district attorneys routinely charge people with things like “assault,” “forgery” and “indecent exposure” even where no statute makes those things a crime.
Common-law crimes are no harder to define with precision than crimes written down in a statute. If someone is accused of burglary in a state where the crime isn’t defined by statute, no defense lawyer would respond by announcing that burglary is vague or made up. Burglary is an established crime, even where its definition exists only in legal treatises and judicial opinions.
American legal treatises and judicial opinions have long recognized the criminal offense of “abuse of power.” In 1846, the first edition of the pre-eminent treatise on American criminal law defined this common-law offense as when “a public officer, entrusted with definite powers to be exercised for the benefit of the community, wickedly abuses or fraudulently exceeds them.” The treatise noted that such an officer “is punishable by indictment, though no injurious effects result to any individual from his misconduct.”
And the House, in its first article of impeachment, has accused Mr. Trump of exactly what the law prohibits: He “abused the powers of the presidency” for “corrupt purposes in pursuit of a personal political benefit.”
As for “obstruction of Congress,” that’s not only a common-law crime. Versions of the crime have also been listed in the federal criminal code since the 19th century.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/opinion/impeachment-defense-trump.html
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