President Donald Trump's personal attorney Jay Sekulow, center, stands with his son, Jordan Sekulow, left, and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, while arriving at the Capitol in Washington during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
We heard the Dems case, now hear the White House's opening argument
02:12 - Source: CNN

Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and author of the forthcoming book, “Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party.” Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

CNN  — 

On Saturday, President Trump’s defense team, as expected, simply brushed aside mountains of evidence and testimony – including a new audio recording – that shows a concerted effort from the White House to leverage aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations that would politically benefit the President.

Julian Zelizer

While House managers Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler and their colleagues put together a very damning case, Pat Cipollone and other members of the President’s legal defense team took bits and pieces of testimony and cited a rough transcript of the Zelensky phone call to argue this was all an unconstitutional witch hunt (reminder: impeachment is written in the same Constitution that created our election process).

Cipollone argued that the hold on US military aid was driven by the President’s desire to fight corruption in Ukraine and make sure other US allies paid their fair share in supporting the country. By stripping away the context of the infamous July 25 phone call, the defense tried to make the President’s actions look harmless.

But the goal of the defense was not to match the House managers with an argument of equal weight. The goal was to provide Senate Republicans with a sufficient number of talking points (and videos of seemingly somber arguments defending the President’s actions) that they can point to when they vote the way they were planning to all along.

The outcome of this trial has been certain from the start. House Democrats understood this and focused on outlining a powerful case that the Senate Republicans would be putting their party ahead of country if they block witness testimonies and ultimately vote to acquit Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

If the Democratic managers can’t convince Republican senators to change their votes, the least they can do is prevent them from getting away with it in the court of public opinion.

The President, who always has an eye for television and the media, wanted to make sure that Senate Republicans will have enough material to justify their actions when they vote to exonerate him.

Trump will inevitably use impeachment to fuel a narrative that will be central to his 2020 campaign. He will argue – as he has many times before – that the Democrats are engaged in an endless campaign to remove him from office and that his actions have been totally legitimate and in the interests of the country.

Although we didn’t hear much of it Saturday, it seems likely the defense team will accuse former Vice President Joe Biden and his son of corruption, even though there is no evidence of wrongdoing from either of them.

If they go down that route, the President’s lawyers would effectively use the impeachment process to drive home the exact message the President wanted Ukraine to help him with many months ago.

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    Will this be effective in making certain that Senate Republicans stand firm when it comes time for the votes on witnesses and whether to convict Trump? Probably. Not because Trump’s lawyers are making a good case, but because intense partisanship within the GOP has ensured that the so-called moderate Republicans would never buckle.

    This lowered the bar as to what Cipollone had to accomplish. The defense team just has to do enough to give Republicans sufficient cover to acquit the President.