On Saturday, President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team launched its case by claiming that removing a president by impeachment—as set forth in the constitution—is unconstitutional and arguing that Ukraine did not even know the aid was being withheld.
Attorney Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, told the Senate that the impeachment trial is “the most massive interference in an election in American history…They’re asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot.”
Cipollone went on to say that impeachment “would violate our Constitution. It would violate our history. It would violate our obligations to the future.”
Mike Purpura then took the floor and, using a series of slides, argued that Ukraine did not even know that aid was deferred.
Playing various excerpts from the House impeaching proceedings, Purpura said no one involved with the now-infamous July 25 call between the president and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky was at all concerned at the time.
