President Donald Trump's defense team will move forward on the position that his impeachment need not be a long proceeding with witnesses, Robert Ray, who was brought on last week as one of the attorneys representing him, said Monday.
"It does not need to be a lengthy proceeding with witnesses if a determination can be made by the Senate that what is alleged here, and they are not crimes alleged, are not sufficient even if shown, to remove the president from office," Ray, a former Whitewater independent counsel, told Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
Ray said that he expects the procedure this week will open with House managers going forward for the better part of two days, followed by Trump's defense team for an equal amount of time.
"I imagine what the country is interested in finding out thereafter is whether there will be witnesses in this case," said Ray. "The president's job is to be president….our job as part of the president's defense team is to show why and how the House managers do not have a case."
The testimony also will reveal why the defense team does not think calling in witnesses is appropriate, and the Senate "can proceed to the task ultimately, in the country's best interest and the president's interest, that a judgment of acquittal is appropriate here."
The defense team will also argue that Trump's impeachment is "fundamentally and constitutionally flawed," said Ray. "Never in history has there been an impeachment of a president without a crime being alleged."
He also argued that Democrats are trying to remove Trump as a duly elected president.
"What are they saying to over 60 million Americans who voted for President Trump in the last election," said Ray. "It is only under very exceptional circumstances that a president should be removed. That's the founders' intent, and it can only be done, under the Constitution, in the Senate if there is a two-thirds supermajority, which necessarily means that it's bipartisan. Since this effort is entirely partisan, it is flawed from the beginning."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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