Washington. In the first court hearing in nearly a year, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers clashed with the judge on Thursday in the election interference case against the former president, after suggesting that the government was rushing into an “illegitimate” accusation at the height of the campaign to reach the White House.
Prosecutors and defense are at deep odds over the next steps in the impeachment process after the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the case by ruling that former presidents are entitled to broad immunity from criminal charges. The competing proposals and acrimonious exchanges in court reflect the extent to which the justices’ July opinion has upended the course of the case, which accuses Trump of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
“We could be dealing with an unlawful impeachment from the start,” said Trump’s lawyer John Lauro. He added: “We want an orderly process that does justice to the Supreme Court’s opinion.”
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team filed a revised indictment last week to remove certain allegations against Trump for which the Supreme Court said the Republican presidential nominee enjoyed immunity. But defense attorneys say the indictment falls short of the justices’ ruling.
#Trumps #lawyer #impeachment #illegitimate #hearing
– 2024-09-09 20:14:02
