Schiff: Argument president cannot be impeached for abusing power ‘absurdist’

Lead impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sunday called the argument that a president cannot be impeached for abuse of power “absurdist.”

Schiff was responding to claims from Alan Dershowitz, a newly announced member of President Trump’s impeachment defense team, on ABC’s “This Week” that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense, regardless of whether the facts presented in the impeachment inquiry are true. 

“You had to go so far out of the mainstream to find someone to make that argument,” Schiff said. “You had to leave the realm of constitutional law scholars and go to criminal defense lawyers.”

“The logic of that absurdist position that’s being now adopted by the president is he could give away the state of Alaska, he could withhold execution of sanctions on Russia for interfering in the last election, to induce or coerce Russia to interfere in the next one,” Schiff added.

Rep. Adam Schiff: “The only thing really new about the president’s defense is that they’re not arguing – I think because they can’t contest the facts — that the president cannot be impeached for abusing the power of his office.” https://t.co/su65A8bcwG pic.twitter.com/JkjHofUeQa

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 19, 2020

The House Intelligence Committee chairman also said the response from Trump’s legal team to the articles of impeachment was “surprising” because of its lack of expansion on the “failed arguments we heard in the House.” 

“The facts aren’t seriously contested,” he said.

“The only thing really new about the president’s defense is that they’re now arguing, I think, because they can’t contest the facts, that the president cannot be impeached for abusing the power of his office,” Schiff added.

{mosads}The president’s legal team released a response to the articles of impeachment levied against him on Saturday, calling them “constitutionally invalid” and the outcome of a “lawless process.”

Dershowitz asserted in a separate interview on “This Week” that the argument made by Trump’s legal team was used successfully in former President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial.

“I am making an argument much like the argument made by the great Justice [Benjamin] Curtis, and to call them absurdist is to insult one of the greatest jurists in American history,” he said. 

The House passed two articles against Trump last month, one for abuse of power and another for obstruction of Congress. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) initially withheld the articles from the Senate in an effort to get information on the layout of the upper chamber’s trial rules. The articles were officially delivered to the Senate last week.