Nancy Pelosi Wants Trump’s Defense Team Disbarred

Fox News had more on the outrageous claims:

In scathing comments Thursday as her party appeared on the verge of defeat in the Senate impeachment trial, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued that President Trump "cannot be acquitted" if the trial lacks the witness testimony and documentation that Democrats have been seeking.

The San Francisco Democrat also fired on Trump's impeachment defense team, saying they've "disgraced themselves" during this week's trial and suggesting they deserve disbarment over their trial remarks.

The comments came hours before Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said he would not back efforts by Democrats to have witnesses testify at the Senate trial – all but sealing an acquittal for Trump.

But Pelosi challenged whether that acquittal would be valid, in remarks that seemed a bid to undermine any Trump claim of victory.

"He will not be acquitted," Pelosi insisted during her weekly news conference, according to Politico. “You cannot be acquitted if you don’t have a trial. You don’t have a trial if you don’t have witnesses and documentation and all of that. Does the president know right from wrong? I don't think so.”

"He will not be acquitted. You cannot be acquitted if you don’t have a trial. You don’t have a trial if you don’t have witnesses and documentation and all of that. Does the president know right from wrong? I don't think so.”

— House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Democrats have been seeking to have former national security adviser John Bolton, and possibly others, testify at the trial. Bolton, who was fired in September, is reportedly willing to provide testimony that could bolster the Democrats’ arguments that Trump abused his power by seeking a quid-pro-quo deal with Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Pelosi’s comments about Trump’s legal team were equally combative.

"I don't know how they can retain their lawyer status, in the comments that they're making," Pelosi told reporters, according to The Hill. "I don't think they made the case. I think they disgraced themselves terribly in terms of their violation of what our Constitution is about and what a president's behavior should be."

"I don't know how they can retain their lawyer status, in the comments that they're making. I don't think they made the case. I think they disgraced themselves terribly in terms of their violation of what our Constitution is about and what a president's behavior should be."

— House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi also accused other Trump allies of attempting “to dismantle the Constitution” in order to shield the president from conviction and removal from office over two articles of impeachment that the Democrat-controlled House approved in December.

“Some of them are even lawyers,” Pelosi said. “Imagine that you would say — ever, of any president, no matter who he or she is or whatever party -- if the president thinks that his or her presidency ... is good for the country, then any action is justified — including encouraging a foreign government to have an impact on our elections."

“[That] is exactly what our Founders were opposed to — and they feared,” she added, according to The Hill. “I don't think they made the case. I think they disgraced themselves terribly in terms of their violation of what our Constitution is about and what a president's behavior should be.”

Pelosi’s comments about the legal team were largely a reaction to Wednesday’s assertion by Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz, that, “If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

Much of the media was quick to attack Dershowitz’s argument, comparing it to former President Richard Nixon’s 1977 comment to British interviewer David Frost that all presidential actions, particularly on national security, were legally justified.

"Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal,” Nixon said.

Dershowitz pushed back on the criticism Thursday.

“I did not say or imply that a candidate could do anything to reassure his reelection,” Dershowitz wrote on Twitter, “only that seeking help in an election is not necessarily corrupt, citing the Lincoln and Obama examples. Critics have an obligation to respond to what I said, not to create straw men to attack.”

Dershowitz elaborated further during an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity.”

"The point I was making was about the senators," Dershowitz said on "Hannity." "What I said [was] if you have mixed motives if you are in the public interest and you're trying to help the public, but you're also trying to get re-elected, according to [Rep. Adam] Schiff and [Rep. Jerry] Nadler, that's a crime.

And from The Hill:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday hammered the lawyers leading President Trump's impeachment defense, saying they've trampled on the Constitution while questioning how they've been allowed to keep their licenses.

"I don't know how they can retain their lawyer status, in the comments that they're making," Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol.

Pelosi was responding largely to comments made Wednesday evening by Alan Dershowitz, a celebrity lawyer on Trump's legal team, who asserted on the Senate floor that presidents cannot be impeached for actions designed to boost their reelections — if they believe that retaining a grip on the White House is in the best interest of the country. And "every public official I know," he added, considers that to be the case.

"If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment," Dershowitz said.

The exception, said Dershowitz, an opinion contributor to The Hill, would be cases where the conduct violated a specific law. The Democrats' two impeachment articles, charging Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, fall outside the federal criminal code.

"The articles of impeachment violate the Constitution," Trump's leading lawyers, Jay Sekulow and Pat Cipollone, said at the outset of the Senate trial. "They are defective in their entirety."

Democrats have vehemently rejected the White House arguments, saying impeachment is an inherently political — not judicial — response designed to protect the country from elected officials who violate the public trust, crime or none. Their impeachment case hinges on allegations that Trump violated that trust in withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine to press the country's leaders to find dirt on his political rivals.

Pelosi on Thursday accused Trump's Republican allies of trying "to dismantle the Constitution" in their defense of the president.

"Some of them are even lawyers," she said. "Imagine that you would say — ever, of any president, no matter who he or she is or whatever party — if the president thinks that his or her presidency ... is good for the country, then any action is justified — including encouraging a foreign government to have an impact on our elections."