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Trump's Lawyers to Wrap Up Defense in Impeachment Trial

VOA News

   WASHINGTON - Lawyers for U.S. President Donald Trump wrap up their
   presentation in his Senate impeachment trial Tuesday while the question
   of whether witnesses will be allowed during the proceedings looms.

   The president's defense team spent Monday accusing Democrats of
   improperly using impeachment as a weapon to get rid of a president they
   simply don't like.

   Kenneth Starr, a member of the president's legal team, called
   impeachment a political weapon that parties use against one another and
   said House Democrats impeached Trump without any bipartisan support.
   Starr described impeachment as "hell."

   Starr was the independent counsel whose investigation led to President
   Bill Clinton's 1998 impeachment for lying to a grand jury about a sex
   scandal.

   "Those of who lived through the Clinton impeachment...full well
   understand that a presidential impeachment is tantamount to domestic
   war. It is filled with acrimony and divides the country like nothing
   else," he said.

   Lawyer Patrick Philbin said the House impeachment inquiry was never
   about taking the time to find out the truth by issuing subpoenas
   through the courts. With the 2020 election approaching, he accused
   House Democrats of rushing to a predetermined outcome to meet a
   timetable.

   Another White House attorney, Jane Raskin, attacked the Democrats for
   focusing on Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who they say was
   at the center of the president's campaign to pressure Ukraine to
   investigate Trump's political rival, Joe Biden.

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