IN PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE UNITED STATES SENATE TRIAL MEMORANDUM OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP Jay Alan Sekulow Pat A. Cipollone Stuart Roth Counsel to the President Andrew Ekonomou Patrick F. Philbin Jordan Sekulow Michael M. Purpura Mark Goldfeder Devin A. DeBacker Benjamin Sisney Trent J. Benishek Eric J. Hamilton Counsel to President Donald J. Trump Office of White House Counsel January 20, 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................ 1 STANDARDS............................................................................................................................... 13 A. The Senate Must Decide All Questions of Law and Fact. .................................... 13 B. An Impeachable Offense Requires a Violation of Established Law that Inflicts Sufficiently Egregious Harm on the Government that It Threatens to Subvert the Constitution. .................................................................. 13 1. Text and Drafting History of the Impeachment Clause ............................ 14 2. The President’s Unique Role in Our Constitutional Structure .................. 17 3. Practice Under the Impeachment Clause .................................................. 18 C. The Senate Cannot Convict Unless It Finds that the House Managers Have Proved an Impeachable Offense Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. .................. 20 D. The Senate May Not Consider Allegations Not Charged in the Articles of Impeachment. ................................................................................................... 21 PROCEDURAL HISTORY .......................................................................................................... 21 THE ARTICLES SHOULD BE REJECTED AND THE PRESIDENT SHOULD IMMEDIATELY BE ACQUITTED. ........................................................................................... 24 I. The Articles Fail to State Impeachable Offenses as a Matter Of Law. ............................. 24 A. House Democrats’ Novel Theory of “Abuse of Power” Does Not State an Impeachable Offense and Would Do Lasting Damage to the Separation of Powers. ........................................................................................... 24 1. House Democrats’ Novel Theory of “Abuse of Power” as an Impeachable Offense Subverts Constitutional Standards and Would Permanently Weaken the Presidency. ........................................... 24 (a) House Democrats’ Made-Up “Abuse of Power” Standard Fails To State an Impeachable Offense Because It Does Not Rest on Violation of an Established Law. ........................................................................... 25 (b) House Democrats’ Unprecedented Theory of Impeachable Offenses Defined by Subjective Intent Alone Would Permanently Weaken the Presidency. .................... 27 2. House Democrats’ Assertions that the Framers Particularly Intended Impeachment to Guard Against “Foreign Entanglements” and “Corruption” of Elections Are Makeweights that Distort History. ............................................................ 33 B. House Democrats’ Charge of “Obstruction” Fails Because Invoking Constitutionally Based Privileges and Immunities to Protect the Separation of Powers Is Not an Impeachable Offense. ......................................... 35 1. President Trump Acted Properly—and upon Advice from the Department of Justice—by Asserting Established Legal Defenses and Immunities to Resist Legally Defective Demands for Information from House Committees. ................................................ 37 (a) Administration Officials Properly Refused to Comply with Subpoenas that Lacked Authorization from the House. ........................................................................................... 37 (i) A Delegation of Authority from the House Is Required Before Any Committee Can Investigate Pursuant to the Impeachment Power. ............. 37 (ii) Nothing in Existing House Rules Authorized Any Committee to Pursue an Impeachment Inquiry. .............................................................................. 39 (iii) More Than 200 Years of Precedent Confirm that the House Must Vote to Begin an Impeachment Inquiry. .............................................................................. 40 (iv) The Subpoenas Issued Before House Resolution 660 Were Invalid and Remain Invalid Because the Resolution Did Not Ratify Them. ............................... 41 (b) The President Properly Asserted Immunity of His Senior Advisers from Compelled Congressional Testimony. .................................................................................... 43 (c) Administration Officials Properly Instructed Employees Not to Testify Before Committees that Improperly Excluded Agency Counsel. ........................................................... 46 2. Asserting Legal Defenses and Immunities Grounded in the Constitution’s Separation of Powers Is Not an Impeachable Offense. ..................................................................................................... 47 (a) Asserting Legal Defenses and Privileges Is Not “Obstruction.” ............................................................................... 47 (b) House Democrats’ Radical Theory of “Obstruction” Would Do Grave Damage to the Separation of Powers. .............. 48 (c) The President Cannot Be Removed from Office Based on a Difference in Legal Opinion. ................................................ 54 II. The Articles Resulted from an Impeachment Inquiry that Violated All Precedent and Denied the President Constitutionally Required Due Process. ................. 55 A. The Purported Impeachment Inquiry Was Unauthorized at the Outset and Compelled Testimony Based on Nearly Two Dozen Invalid Subpoenas. ............................................................................................................ 56 ii B. House Democrats’ Impeachment Inquiry Deprived the President of the Fundamentally Fair Process Required by the Constitution. ............................ 57 1. The Text and Structure of the Constitution Demand that the House Ensure Fundamentally Fair Procedures in an Impeachment Inquiry. ............................................................................... 58 (a) The Due Process Clause Requires Fair Process. ........................... 58 (b) The Separation of Powers Requires Fair Process. ........................ 60 (c) The House’s Sole Power of Impeachment and Power to Determine Rules of Its Own Proceedings Do Not Eliminate the Constitutional Requirement of Due Process. ......................................................................................... 61 2. The House’s Consistent Practice of Providing Due Process in Impeachment Investigations for the Last 150 Years Confirms that the Constitution Requires Due Process. ............................................. 62 3. The President’s Counsel Must Be Allowed to Be Present at Hearings, See and Present Evidence, and Cross-Examine All Witnesses. ................................................................................................. 66 4. The House Impeachment Inquiry Failed to Provide the Due Process Demanded by the Constitution and Generated a Fundamentally Skewed Record that Cannot Be Relied Upon in the Senate. ................................................................................................. 67 (a) Phase I: Secret Hearings in the Basement Bunker ........................ 67 (b) Phase II: The Public, Ex Parte Show Trial Before HPSCI ........................................................................................... 69 (c) Phase III: The Ignominious Rubber Stamp from the Judiciary Committee ..................................................................... 70 C. The House’s Inquiry Was Irredeemably Defective Because It Was Presided Over by an Interested Fact Witness Who Lied About Contact with the Whistleblower Before the Complaint Was Filed. ................................... 74 D. The Senate May Not Rely on a Factual Record Derived from a Procedurally Deficient House Impeachment Inquiry. .......................................... 75 E. House Democrats Used an Unprecedented and Unfair Process Because Their Goal to Impeach at Any Cost Had Nothing To Do with Finding the Truth. ................................................................................................. 75 III. Article I Fails Because the Evidence Disproves House Democrats’ Claims. ................... 80 A. The Evidence Refutes Any Claim That the President Conditioned the Release of Security Assistance on an Announcement of Investigations by Ukraine. ............................................................................................................ 81 1. The July 25 Call Transcript Shows the President Did Nothing Wrong. ...................................................................................................... 81 iii 2. President Zelenskyy and Other Senior Ukrainian Officials Confirmed There Was No Quid Pro Quo and No Pressure on Them Concerning Investigations. ............................................................. 84 3. President Zelenskyy and Other Senior Ukrainian Officials Did Not Even Know that the Security Assistance Had Been Paused. ............. 85 4. House Democrats Rely Solely on Speculation Built on Hearsay. ................................................................................................................... 87 5. The Security Assistance