Trump impeachment: Supporters and critics clash

WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump's defenders and supporters have skirmished over the airwaves, a day after his legal team dismissed his impeachment trial as unconstitutional and dangerous.

Coming two days before Mr Trump's trial opens in the Senate, the clashing arguments on Sunday offered an early taste of the historic drama to play out in coming weeks.

Beginning today, the chamber will meet six hours a day for six days a week in only the third impeachment trial of a US president, with lofty constitutional issues brushing up against raw partisan politics.

It will be a "gruelling exercise", Republican Senator John Cornyn said on CBS.

Celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz, a recent addition to Mr Trump's legal team, had argued on Sunday that even if every charge sent by the House to the Senate for the President's trial were accepted as true, it would not rise to the level of impeachable behaviour.

"The (House) vote was to impeach on abuse of power, which is not within the constitutional criteria for impeachment, and obstruction of justice," Mr Dershowitz said on ABC.

A politically motivated impeachment, he added, was the "greatest nightmare" of the country's founders.

Mr Adam Schiff, the California lawmaker chosen by House Democrats as lead manager of the impeachment trial, dismissed the notion that abuse of power was not impeachable. "That's an argument you have to make if the facts are so dead set against you," he said on ABC.

Another House impeachment manager, Mr Jerrold Nadler, called Mr Dershowitz's argument "arrant nonsense".

The House impeached Mr Trump on charges that he abused his office to pressure Ukraine to dig up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden by withholding military aid and dangling a White House meeting with the Ukrainian president. He was also charged with obstructing Congress.

For Republicans to argue that such behaviour is not impeachable, Mr Schiff said, "would have appalled the founders, who were worried about exactly that kind of solicitation of foreign interference in an election for personal benefit".

The two sides have been publicly fencing over whether the trial will be conducted quickly, perhaps in as little as two weeks - Mr Trump's clear preference - or whether witnesses can be called and new evidence introduced, as Democrats insist is needed for a full and fair trial.

The President has said he would like the Senate to almost immediately dismiss the charges, but Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump confidant, told Fox News: "That is not going to happen. We don't have the votes for that."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has yet to announce the rules for the trial, but has said he is cooperating with the White House and wants it done quickly.

Underscoring the stark divide running through the Senate, Mr Cornyn said Mr Trump was being impeached "for a non-crime for events that never occurred", while Mr Nadler said "any jury would convict him in three minutes flat".

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE