Trump Legal Team Says Quid Pro Quo In Pursuit Of Reelection Isn't Impeachable

The NPR Politics Podcast

The point was made by Alan Dershowitz, one of the president's attorneys: "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."

Asked to respond, Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff was incredulous. "All quid pro quos are fine, it's carte blanche?" Schiff asked. "Is that really what we're prepared to say?"

The question of whether witnesses will be included in the trail remains open. While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republicans on Tuesday that he didn't have to votes to block witnesses, Democrats still may not have enough support to subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton. Bolton reportedly claims in a forthcoming book that President Trump conditioned aid to Ukraine on an investigation that would likely benefit his reelection bid.

This episode: White House correspondents Tamara Keith and Franco Ordoñez, and political reporter Tim Mak.

Connect:
Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.
Email the show at nprpolitics@npr.org.
Join the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.
Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.
Find and support your local public radio station.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy
2020-01-30 12 min

Available Results

Generated results are saved to your library for reuse and search.

No generated results are available for this episode yet.

Transcript

No transcript is available for this episode yet.
Sign in to generate a transcript for review.
Sign in

Chapters

No chapters available.