President Trump speaks to supporters before a joint session on Jan. 6
The Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate will impeach former President Donald Trump next Monday, Feb. 8, for provoking the Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill, and Trump filed his response to the impeachment papers through his attorney on Tuesday, Feb. 2. In his response, he denied that he should be impeached by the Senate and argued that impeaching a former official who is no longer in public office violates the U.S. Constitution. Here is the full text of his response.
Response of the 45th President of the United States to the impeachment
To the Honorable Senators.
The 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, through his attorneys Bruce L Castor and David Schon, (by dividing the impeachment brief into eight parts), hereby replies to the impeachment motion filed against him by the Senate.
Part I.
Allegation: That the Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power of impeachment, and that those Presidents who are impeached and plead guilty to crimes similar to treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors shall be removed from office.
Re: Admitted in part, denied in part, denied because it is meaningless to the Senate
Admitted because the constitutional provision was accurately restated.
The denial is that this quoted clause does not apply to the 45th President of the United States because he is no longer the “President of the United States”.
This clause of the Constitution is intended to impeach a sitting President; since the 45th President is no longer the sitting President, the Senate can no longer remove him from office on a writ of impeachment, and therefore the current (impeachment) proceedings in the Senate are, from the beginning, contrary to the short form of the Constitution and are legally invalid.
Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution reads, “The judgment of impeachment shall not extend beyond the removal of his office and the abolition of the office he has and enjoys (in the future).” Since the Senate’s removal of the president is a prerequisite that must occur before the removal of his future possession of office, and since the Senate cannot remove the 45th president from office now that his term has ended, this means that the first part of the petition is moot.
Part II.
Allegation: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits any person who has ever subverted or rebelled against the United States from holding any official position
Response: Admitted in part, denied in part, denied because it is meaningless to the Senate
Admit that this clause accurately states the content of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Deny that the 45th President engaged in subversion or rebellion against the United States.
The 45th President believed and therefore asserted that the Senate had no jurisdiction to prohibit him from holding public office as a private citizen, because if the Senate acted on this provision it would violate Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution and become a Bill of Attainder.
The 45th President asked the Senate to dismiss the second part of the petition due to the 14th Amendment because it was irrelevant and not worthy of discussion.
Part III.
Allegation: While serving as President of the United States, Trump has acted in violation of his oath of office to the Constitution to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and to preserve, protect, and defend to the best of his ability the Constitution of the United States; and has also violated his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws.
Re: Denied, and meaningless to the Senate
Denies that the 45th President of the United States has ever engaged in conduct that violates his presidential oath of office. In contrast, Trump has fully and faithfully performed his duties as President of the United States from beginning to end, and has never engaged in any felony or misdemeanor.
Since the 45th President is no longer President, the “he shall be removed from office by impeachment” clause under Part I is no longer enforceable, and the impeachment process currently underway in the Senate is, from the outset, unconstitutional in its simplicity and legally invalid because the 45th President cannot be removed from the office he no longer holds. office, so Part 3 is meaningless to the Senate.
Part 4.
Allegation: Trump engaged in felonies and misdemeanors by engaging in acts of violence that provoked opposition to the U.S. government
On January 6, 2021, the Vice President of the United States, the House of Representatives, and the Senate met in joint session at the Capitol to certify the Electoral College votes under the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And in the months leading up to the joint session, President Trump repeatedly issued ‘false’ statements claiming that the election results were the result of widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American people nor certified by state and federal officials.
Re: partial admissions, partial denials
Admit that a joint session of the Vice President, House and Senate certified the Electoral College votes on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.
Admit that after the November election, the 45th President exercised his First Amendment right to express his opinion that the election results were suspect because, under the guise of ensuring that the election was conducted safely during the CCP virus Epidemic, politicians and judges in all but a few states changed their state’s campaign laws and campaign procedures without obtaining the necessary approval from their state legislatures. There is not enough evidence for a reasonable jurist to conclude that the 45th President’s statements are accurate, so the 45th President is wrong to deny such statements.
Like all Americans, the 45th president was protected by the First Amendment. He did believe, and asserted, that the United States is a unique nation on earth because of its Constitution, and specifically its human rights laws that intentionally protect unpopular speech from government retaliation. If the First Amendment protected only speech that the government determined to be popular in current American Culture, it would be no protection at all.
Since the 45th President is no longer President, the premise of the constitutional provision cited in Part I of the Complaint, “shall be removed from office by impeachment,” is no longer fulfilled; and the current impeachment proceedings in the Senate are legally invalid from the beginning, making Part IV moot.
Part V.
Allegation: Shortly after the joint session began, President Trump addressed the crowd on the Oval Lawn on the south side of the White House in Washington, D.C., falsely claiming that “we won the election, and we won it by an overwhelming majority. “
Response: Partial admission and partial denial
Admit that President Trump spoke to the public on the Oval Lawn on the south side of the White House on January 6, 2021, in accordance with his constitutional right to do so, and stated his belief that the election results were suspect, as documented in the full speech recording. This part somehow accuses him of being substantially wrong in his views, a charge the 45th president denies.
Part Six.
Allegation: He (Trump) intentionally issued statements that in context encouraged, and predictably led to, the unlawful acts that took place at the Capitol. Those statements included, “If you don’t fight like hell, you will no longer own the country.” Thus, at the ‘instigation’ of President Trump, the people who attended the speech attempted to interfere with the serious constitutional obligation of both houses to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, illegally violated Capitol rules and destroyed Capitol property, injured and killed law enforcement officers, threatened Congressional personnel, the Vice President and Congressional staff, and engaged in other violent, deadly, and injurious acts of demagoguery.
Response: Partly affirmative and partly negative
Admitted that someone unlawfully violated Capitol rules by destroying public property at the Capitol. People were injured and killed in the process, and law enforcement agencies are investigating and prosecuting those responsible.
“Sedititous act” (Sedition) is a term of art with legal significance, and the use of the word in the impeachment case thus denies the connotation of the word in its context.
Deny that President Trump incited people to engage in destructive behavior. Otherwise, the phrase “if you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore” has nothing to do with what happened at the Capitol because, as the taped speech shows, the phrase is clearly about the need to fight for the safety of the election.
As is customary, members of Congress follow congressionally mandated procedures to challenge the electoral college votes submitted by states, and both chambers discuss whether to count the electoral college votes submitted by a state based on those procedures. in 2017, Democratic members of Congress repeatedly challenged the electoral college votes submitted by states that President Trump won; in 2021, Republican members of Congress challenged the electoral college votes submitted by states that Biden won. The purpose of the 2017 joint session and the January 6, 2021 joint session is for members of Congress to carry out their responsibility to ensure that the Electoral College votes are properly submitted and that any challenges by members of Congress are properly handled in accordance with congressional regulations. The role of Congress, therefore, is not merely to certify the results of the presidential election. Congress’s duty is first and foremost to confirm that the presidential election vote is certified and ratifiable under congressional regulations.
Part VII.
Allegation: President Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, and his prior actions were designed to overturn the certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election. President Trump’s prior conduct includes a January 2, 2021 telephone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which President Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Georgia’s presidential election results and threatened Raffensperger .
Response: Admit in part, deny in part, deny because it’s meaningless to the Senate
Admit that on January 2, 2021, President Trump spoke on the phone with a number of people, including Secretary of State Ruffinsperger and several lawyers from both parties. And that LaFonsberg or whoever over there surreptitiously recorded the content of that phone call and subsequently released that content to the public. And that recording accurately reflects the content of that conversation.
Deny that the president made any effort to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Denies that the word “found” was used inappropriately in the context, because President Trump expressed the view that if one were to look closely at the evidence, one would “find a large number of even unsigned and fraudulent ballots.”
Denied ever threatening Secretary of State Ruffinsparger
Otherwise there was any misconduct in that phone call
Since the 45th President is no longer the incumbent, the “removed from office by impeachment” constitutional provision in Part I is no longer possible because the 45th President is no longer in office; it also shows that the current process in the Senate has no legal significance from the beginning, which makes Article 7 irrelevant to the Senate
Part Eight.
Allegation: In these processes President Trump has seriously jeopardized the security of the United States and the security of its governmental institutions; threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, endangered an equivalent branch of government (Congress), and he has thus betrayed the trust placed in him by the American people as President due to the obvious harm they have suffered.
Re: deny, again, because it has nothing to do with the Senate
Deny that President Trump has ever endangered the security of the United States and the security of American government institutions.
Otherwise he has threatened the integrity of the American democratic initiative, interfered with a peaceful transition of power, and endangered an equal branch of government.
Denying that he has clearly harmed the American people and therefore betrayed the trust he has received from the American people as president.
(In contrast) The 45th president, on the other hand, performed admirably during his tenure as president of the United States, doing what he believed was in the best interest of the American people throughout his tenure in office. The 45th President believed, and therefore asserted, that in America, the people choose their President, and he was rightly elected by the people in 2016 and sworn in in 2017, and he did his best to complete his term of office in a manner befitting his sworn oath of office.
Since the 45th president is no longer the sitting president, the “impeachment requires removal from office” constitutional provision in Part I above no longer applies, as the 45th president is no longer in office, meaning that the current impeachment process was not legally valid from the beginning, rendering Section 8 meaningless to the Senate.
Because some of the factual allegations regarding the 45th President of the United States were not specifically discussed above, the appeal was denied and strict evidence was required to be presented at the hearing.
Legal briefs
To the Honorable Senators.
The 45th President of the United States, Donald John Trump, over his attorneys Custer and Sean, asserts that the impeachment case filed against him by the House of Representatives is defective on its face and substance, is unconstitutional, and must be dismissed because it is prejudicial.
In support of this view, the 45th President, respectfully stated
The U.S. Senate lacks jurisdiction over the 45th President because he no longer holds any public office and therefore can no longer be removed from office; the constitutional requirement of removal from office as a prerequisite to permit impeachment by the Senate under the Constitution limits the Senate’s authority on impeachment cases.
The Senate’s lack of jurisdiction over the 45th President, who is not holding any public office and therefore can no longer be removed from office, renders impeachment a moot point and a non-justiciable issue.
If the Senate acts on the House’s proposed impeachment, the bill would violate Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution and would be a denial of private rights bill.
The impeachment bill misconstrues protected speech and does not meet the constitutional criteria for any impeachable offense.
In its haste to enact the impeachment, the House ignored its own procedures and mid-twentieth century precedents, depriving the 45th President of the power to pursue due process of law, the lack of which included, and was not limited to, the failure to conduct any meaningful committee review, or other investigation; the failure to give full and fair consideration to any evidence supporting the impeachment, and the failure to allow the House to hear 45th President’s position and have a full and fair discussion thereon; and the absence of exigent circumstances under the law allowing the Senate to make such a hasty judgment. The House’s denial of the 45th President’s authority to pursue due process of law creates a special category of citizenship for the 45th President of the United States. If the Senate does not act in favor of the 45th President, the precedent set by the House will eliminate all American civil rights guaranteed by human rights law to persons in the position of the 45th President; the House’s actions clearly demonstrate that in their view the 45th President does not enjoy the protections of autonomy upon which this great nation was founded, and that freedom of speech, indeed political freedom of speech, is the backbone of all American freedoms. is the backbone of all American freedoms. No reason was presented that would allow it to act in such haste, and there was no reason for the House to rush the proceedings, to deny the defendants the opportunity to present their views in person at a hearing, or to go through legal counsel – all basic principles of due process of law. As the facts show, because the House waited until the end of the President’s term to submit the impeachment, no exigent circumstances occurred during the process, and the House had no legal or moral reason to act so hastily. Political hatred has no place in any American judicial system, especially in the U.S. Congress.
The impeachment bill violates the 45th president’s right to freedom of speech and thought, a right guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
One of the continuing flaws in the impeachment case is that by prosecuting several allegedly impeachable acts in one case, the House of Representatives has made it impossible to ensure compliance with Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6 of the Constitution, which requires at least 2/3 of the Senate to convict, by prosecuting several wrongs in one impeachment writ. Rather than intertwining the different charges, the House’s indictment breaks them down into several individual acts of alleged misconduct. Rule 23 of the Senate Rules of Procedure and Practice on Impeachment states that the impeachment should be indivisible, because this current impeachment prosecutes multiple errors, it will be impossible to know whether 2/3 of the House will agree to the entire bill, or parts of it, and the House failed to comply with the Senate’s strict rules and deliberately chose to make this impeachment as broad as possible because they hoped that certain But when the different Senators come together, the House will hopefully be able to get the support of 2/3 of the Senators, although the 2/3 of the Senators may not agree on the same parts. That is the purpose of this impeachment, to get Senators to endorse some of the charges in an overly broad impeachment, and to pass it as a result. On the other hand, there may be another reason for this behavior of the House of Representatives, namely, that it was a byproduct of their haste, and in that haste the House unnecessarily deprived the 45th President of the power to pursue due process of law. The 45th President therefore believes, and asserts, that this flawed draft impeachment needs to be told by the Senators that if not 2/3 of the Senators find sufficient incriminating evidence in this impeachment, this entire impeachment should be dismissed.
The Chief Justice of the United States (Supreme Court) is not prepared to preside over this impeachment proceeding before the Senate, but is constitutionally required to do so under Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6 of the U.S. Constitution, if the House of Representatives seeks to remove a sitting President from office; at the end of the 45th President’s term of office, the House of Representatives chooses to allow the jurisdiction of impeachment to lapse, and the Constitution authorizes The requirement that the Chief Justice preside over all impeachment cases involving the President also apparently disappeared, and he was replaced by the Deputy Speaker of the Senate, who would also allegedly serve as a juror in deciding certain issues, an action by the Senate designed to ensure that Chief Justice Robert would not preside over this impeachment proceeding, which effectively created additional prejudice in the proceedings, since this proceeding was brought by a man who had long published overseen by a Democratic senator who had long published opinions opposing the 45th president. The 45th President believed, and therefore asserted, that this action by the House of Representatives additionally infringed on his right to pursue legitimate legal proceedings because the House effectively placed their supporters in the Senate on the bench.
The 45th President of the United States therefore respectfully requests the Senators of Congress to dismiss this impeachment claiming that he provoked the disturbance as moot and unconstitutional because the Senate lacks jurisdiction to remove from office a person who has left office and no longer holds public office, and on the other hand, the 45th President respectfully requests the Senate to acquit him.
Presented by
Custer and Shawn
Legal Adviser to the 45th President
February 2, 2021
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