WASHINGTON â The biggest unanswered question about the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump is whether it will feature any new witness testimony.
But even if Democrats canât drag in White House officials like acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney or former national security adviser John Bolton, they already have evidence from someone much better: Donald J. Trump himself, who has provided some of the most incriminating remarks in the impeachment trial.
After an unidentified official blew the whistle on the president last August for trying to coerce a foreign government into helping him win the 2020 election, the White House released a partial transcript of the phone call that sparked the complaint. Republicans contend that it shows Trump cares about corruption; Democrats say that it shows Trump asking the Ukrainian president for a sham investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden.
If there was any doubt about which side is right, Trump has explained exactly what he wanted from Ukraine.
âI would think that, if they were honest about it, theyâd start a major investigation into the Bidens,â Trump said outside the White House on Oct. 3 last year. âItâs a very simple answer.â
During the first three days of arguments in front of the U.S. Senate, Democratic House impeachment managers played the clip of Trumpâs comment at least four times.
As the presidentâs legal team assumes control of the proceedings on Saturday, theyâll have to come up with a credible explanation for his comments â something that Trumpâs defenders in Congress have struggled to do so far.
âI canât imagine being in the position of being President Trumpâs attorney, because he says things all the time that are directly contradictory to his own interests, to his defense strategy or to what he said yesterday,â Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told HuffPost this week.
The Oct. 3 clip is just one of several videos Democrats have shown repeatedly at trial. In another, from a June 12 ABC News interview, the president said that if a foreign government offered dirt on an opponent, heâd accept it â contrary to campaign finance law, which prohibits candidates from accepting anything of value from foreign governments.
âThereâs nothing wrong with listening,â Trump said in the video. âIf somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said,] âWe have information on your opponent,â oh, I think Iâd want to hear it.â
In an Oct. 17 video shown at least four times, a reporter explicitly asked Mulvaney to confirm that the Trump administration had withheld military assistance from Ukraine as a âquid pro quoâ in return for political favors.
âWe do that all the time with foreign policy,â Mulvaney said, adding a moment later: âGet over it.â
Democrats, obviously, think the videos are great stuff, even though theyâre not new.
âThe video is telling the story very powerfully and the president of the United States and his chief of staff ... basically confessed to the violations that theyâre charged with,â Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said.
Republicans are less impressed. âOld stuff,â said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).
But in the months since the videos were recorded, Republicans havenât come up with a compelling defense of a president openly demanding that a foreign government investigate his political opponent. They have argued instead that the Democrats used a flawed process in the House impeachment inquiry.
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) acknowledged this week that the Biden request was bad. âI wouldnât have done it myself, but itâs not impeachable,â Braun told HuffPost.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), one of the House members advising Trumpâs trial team, seemed to concede that the presidentâs statements have not helped his case, but Meadows suggested the public has already factored in those remarks.
âThe poor narratives are already out there,â Meadows said. âI donât see anything that could get any worse.â
Trumpâs call for a âmajor investigationâ of Biden by Ukraine points to a fundamental question: Is it OK for the president to ask a foreign government to investigate his political rival?
Many Republicans have avoided giving a yes or no answer. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told HuffPost that, speaking hypothetically, if a president asked a foreign government for electoral assistance, âit would not be a good thing.â But he said thatâs not what Trump did on his phone call.
So what did Trump do?
âI think that he asked the Ukrainian president if the government would cooperate in ongoing American investigations, DOJ investigations, which seems fine to me,â Hawley said.
On the call, Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to talk to Rudy Giuliani, Trumpâs personal attorney, and to U.S. Attorney General William Barr about investigating both Biden and a conspiracy theory (favored by Trump) that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The Department of Justice said in September that it had nothing to do with any investigation into Biden. âThe president has not spoken with the attorney general about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son,â a DOJ spokesperson said at the time. âThe president has not asked the attorney general to contact Ukraine â on this or any other matter.â
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) â who is probably the presidentâs biggest Senate defender and someone who has described Trumpâs impeachment as a âlynchingâ â acknowledged this week that the president might be wrong about a few things.
âThe president believes that what happened in the Ukraine with the Bidens was inappropriate. Now, whether or not that will withstand scrutiny, I donât know,â Graham said, adding that the Ukrainian government was definitely not a bad actor in 2016.
âAll I can do is tell you is that from the presidentâs point of view, he did nothing wrong in his mind,â Graham said.