IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
Sitting as a Court of Impeachment

In re
IMPEACHMENT OF
PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

REPLY MEMORANDUM OF THE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
IN THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

United States House of Representatives
Adam B. Schiff
Jerrold Nadler
Zoe Lofgren
Hakeem S. Jeffries
Val Butler Demings
Jason Crow
Sylvia R. Garcia
U.S. House of Representatives Managers

 TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 1 
ARGUMENT..................................................................................................................................................... 6 
I. 

PRESIDENT TRUMP MUST BE REMOVED FOR ABUSING HIS POWER ................................................. 6 
  President Trump’s Abuse of Power Is a Quintessential Impeachable Offense ................. 6 
  The House Has Proven that President Trump Corruptly Pressured Ukraine to

Interfere in the Presidential Election for His Personal Benefit ..........................................13 
II.  PRESIDENT TRUMP MUST BE REMOVED FOR OBSTRUCTING CONGRESS .......................................20 
  President Trump’s Claim of Transparency Ignores the Facts .............................................21 
  President Trump Categorically Refused to Comply with the House’s Impeachment

Inquiry..........................................................................................................................................22 
  President Trump’s Assertion of Invented Immunities Does Not Excuse His

Categorical Obstruction ............................................................................................................23 
III.  THE HOUSE CONDUCTED A CONSTITUTIONALLY VALID IMPEACHMENT PROCESS.....................25 
  The Constitution Does Not Authorize President Trump to Second Guess the

House’s Exercise of Its “Sole Power of Impeachment” ......................................................26 
  President Trump Received Fair Process .................................................................................29 

 INTRODUCTION
President Trump’s brief confirms that his misconduct is indefensible. To obtain a personal
political “favor” designed to weaken a political rival, President Trump corruptly pressured the newly
elected Ukrainian President into announcing two sham investigations. As leverage against Ukraine
in his corrupt scheme, President Trump illegally withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in security
assistance critical to Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression, as well as a vital Oval Office
meeting. When he got caught, President Trump sought to cover up his scheme by ordering his
Administration to disclose no information to the House of Representatives in its impeachment
investigation. President Trump’s efforts to hide his misdeeds continue to this day, as do his efforts
to solicit foreign interference. President Trump must be removed from office now because he is
trying to cheat his way to victory in the 2020 Presidential election, and thereby undermine the very
foundation of our democratic system.
President Trump’s lengthy brief to the Senate is heavy on rhetoric and procedural
grievances, but entirely lacks a legitimate defense of his misconduct. It is clear from his response
that President Trump would rather discuss anything other than what he actually did. Indeed, the
first 80 pages of his brief do not meaningfully attempt to defend his conduct—because there is no
defense for a President who seeks foreign election interference to retain power and then attempts to
cover it up by obstructing a Congressional inquiry. The Senate should swiftly reject President
Trump’s bluster and evasion, which amount to the frightening assertion that he may commit
whatever misconduct he wishes, at whatever cost to the Nation, and then hide his actions from the
representatives of the American people without repercussion.
First, President Trump’s argument that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense is
wrong—and dangerous. That argument would mean that, even accepting that the House’s recitation

 of the facts is correct—which it is—the House lacks authority to remove a President who sells out
our democracy and national security in exchange for a personal political favor. The Framers of our
Constitution took pains to ensure that such egregious abuses of power would be impeachable. They
specifically rejected a proposal to limit impeachable offenses to treason and bribery and included the
term “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”1
There can be no reasonable dispute that the Framers would have considered a President’s
solicitation of a foreign country’s election interference in exchange for critical American military and
diplomatic support to be an impeachable offense. Nor can there be any dispute that the Framers
would have recognized that allowing a President to prevent Congress from investigating his
misconduct would nullify the House’s “sole Power of Impeachment.”2 No amount of legal rhetoric
can hide the fact that President Trump exemplifies why the Framers included the impeachment
mechanism in the Constitution: to save the American people from these kinds of threats to our
republic.
Second, President Trump’s assertion that impeachable offenses must involve criminal conduct
is refuted by two centuries of precedent and, if accepted, would have intolerable consequences. But
this argument has not been accepted in previous impeachment proceedings and should not be
accepted here. As one member of President Trump’s legal team previously conceded, President
Trump’s theory would mean that the President could not be impeached even if he allowed an enemy
power to invade and conquer American territory.3 The absurdity of that argument demonstrates
why every serious constitutional scholar to consider it—including the House Republicans’ own legal

1

U.S. Const., Art. II, § 4.
U.S. Const., Art. I, § 2, cl. 5.
3
See Alan Dershowitz, The Case Against Impeaching Trump 26-27 (2018).
2

2

 expert—has rejected it.4 The Framers intentionally did not tie “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” to
the federal criminal code—which did not exist at the time of the Founding—but instead created
impeachment to cover severe abuses of the public trust like those of President Trump.
Third, President Trump now claims that he had virtuous reasons for withholding from our
ally Ukraine sorely needed security assistance and that there was no actual threat or reward as part of
his proposed corrupt bargain. But the President’s after-the-fact justifications for his illegal hold on
security assistance cannot fool anybody. The reason President Trump jeopardized U.S. national
security and the integrity of our elections is even more pernicious: he wanted leverage over Ukraine
to obtain a personal, political favor that he hoped would bolster his reelection bid.
If withholding the security assistance to Ukraine had been a legitimate foreign policy act,
then there is no reason President Trump’s staff would have gone to such lengths to hide it, and no
reason President Trump would have tried so hard to deny the obvious when it came to light. It is
common sense that innocent people do not behave like President Trump did here. As his own
Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney bluntly confessed and as numerous other witnesses confirmed,
there was indeed a quid pro quo with Ukraine. The Trump Administration’s message to the
American people was clear: “We do that all the time with foreign policy.”5 Instead of embracing
what his Acting Chief of Staff honestly disclosed, President Trump has tried to hide what the
evidence plainly reveals: the Emperor has no clothes.
Fourth, President Trump’s assertion that he has acted with “transparency” during this
impeachment is yet another falsehood. In fact, unlike any of his predecessors, President Trump

4

See, e.g., Jonathan Turley, Written Statement, The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J.
Trump: The “Constitutional Basis” for Presidential Impeachment 10-11 (Dec. 4, 2019),
https://perma.cc/92PY-MBVY; Charlie Savage, ‘Constitutional Nonsense’: Trump’s Impeachment Defense
Defies Legal Consensus, N.Y. Times (Jan. 20, 2020), https://perma.cc/76TD-94XT.
5
Statement of Material Facts ¶ 121 (Jan. 18, 2020) (Statement of Facts) (filed as an
attachment to the House’s Trial Memorandum).
3

 categorically refused to provide the House with any information and demanded that the entire
Executive Branch coverup his misconduct. President Trump’s subordinates fell in line.
Similarly wrong is the argument by President Trump’s lawyers that his blanket claim of
immunity from investigation should now be understood as a valid assertion of executive privilege—
a privilege he never actually invoked. And President Trump’s continued attempt to justify his
obstruction by citing to constitutional separation of powers misunderstands the nature of an
impeachment. His across-the-board refusal to provide Congress with information and his assertion
that his own lawyers are the sole judges of Presidential privilege undermines the constitutional
authority of the people’s representatives and shifts power to an imperial President.
Fifth, President Trump’s complaints about the House’s impeachment procedures are
meritless excuses. President Trump was offered an eminently fair process by the House and he will
receive additional process during the Senate proceedings, which, unlike the House investigation,
constitute an actual trial. As President Trump recognizes, the Senate must “decide for itself all
matters of law and fact.”6
The House provided President Trump with process that was just as substantial—if not more
so—than the process afforded other Presidents who have been subject to an impeachment inquiry,
including the right to call witnesses and present evidence. Because he had too much to hide,
President Trump did not take advantage of what the House offered him and instead decided to
shout from the sidelines—only to claim that the process he obstructed was unfair. President
Trump’s lengthy trial brief does not explain why, even now, he has not offered any documents or
witnesses in his defense or provided any information in response to the House’s repeated requests.
This is not how an innocent person behaves. President Trump’s process arguments are simply part

6

Trial Memorandum of President Donald J. Trump at 13 (Jan. 20, 2020) (Opp.).
4

 of his attempt to cover up his wrongdoing and to undermine the House in the exercise of its
constitutional duty.
Finally, President Trump’s impeachment trial is an effort to safeguard our elections, not
override them. His unsupported contentions to the contrary have it exactly backwards. President
Trump has shown that he will use the immense powers of his office to manipulate the upcoming
election to his own advantage. Respect for the integrity of this Nation’s democratic process requires
that President Trump be removed before he can corrupt the very election that would hold him
accountable to the American people.
In addition, President Trump is wrong to suggest that the impeachment trial is an attempt to
overturn the prior election. If the Senate convicts and removes President Trump from office, then
the Vice President elected by the American people in 2016 will become the President.7 The logic of
President Trump’s argument is that because he was elected once and stands for reelection again, he
cannot be impeached no matter how egregiously he betrays his oath of office. This type of
argument would not have fooled the Framers of our Constitution, who included impeachment as a
check on Presidents who would abuse their office for personal gain, like President Trump.
*

*

*

The Framers anticipated that a President might one day seek to place his own personal and
political interests above those of our Nation, and they understood that foreign interference in our
elections was one of the gravest threats to our democracy. The Framers also knew that periodic
democratic elections cannot serve as an effective check on a President who seeks to manipulate the

7

As the then-House Managers explained in President Clinton’s impeachment trial, “[t]he
25th Amendment to the Constitution ensures that impeachment and removal of a President would
not overturn an election because it is the elected Vice President who would replace the President not
the losing presidential candidate.” Reply of the U.S. House of Representatives to the Trial Mem. of
President Clinton, in Proceedings of the United States Senate in the Impeachment Trial of President Willian
Jefferson Clinton, Volume II: Floor Trial Proceedings, S. Doc. No. 106-4, at 1001 (1999).
5

 those elections. The ultimate check on Presidential misconduct was provided by the Framers
through the power to impeach and remove a President—a power that the Framers vested in the
representatives of the American people.
Indeed, on the eve of his impeachment trial, President Trump continues to insist that he has
done nothing wrong. President Trump’s view that he cannot be held accountable, except in an
election he seeks to fix in his favor, underscores the need for the Senate to exercise its solemn
constitutional duty to remove President Trump from office. If the Senate does not convict and
remove President Trump, he will have succeeded in placing himself above the law. Each Senator
should set aside partisanship and politics and hold President Trump accountable to protect our
national security and democracy.
ARGUMENT
I.

PRESIDENT TRUMP MUST BE REMOVED FOR ABUSING HIS POWER
President Trump’s Abuse of Power Is a Quintessential Impeachable Offense
President Trump contends that he can abuse his power with impunity—in his words, “do

whatever I want as President”8—provided he does not technically violate a statute in the process.
That argument is both wrong and remarkable. History, precedent, and the words of the Framers
conclusively establish that serious abuses of power—offenses, like President Trump’s, that threaten
our democratic system—are impeachable.
President Trump’s own misconduct illustrates the implications of his position. In President
Trump’s view, as long as he does not violate a specific statute, then the only check on his corrupt
abuse of his office for his personal gain is the need to face reelection—even if the very goal of his
abusive behavior is to cheat in that election. If President Trump were to succeed in his scheme and

8

Statement of Facts ¶ 164.
6

 win a second and final term, he would face no check on his conduct. The Senate should reject that
dangerous position.
1. The Framers Intended Impeachment as a Remedy for Abuse of High Office. President Trump
appears to reluctantly concede that the fear that Presidents would abuse their power was among the
key reasons that the Framers adopted an impeachment remedy.9 But he contends that abuse of
power was never intended to be an impeachable offense in its own right.10
President Trump’s focus on the label to be applied to his conduct distracts from the
fundamental point: His conduct is impeachable whether it is called an “abuse of power” or
something else. The Senate is not engaged in an abstract debate about how to categorize the
particular acts at issue; the question instead is whether President Trump’s conduct is impeachable
because it is a serious threat to our republic. For the reasons set forth in the House Manager’s
opening brief, the answer is plainly yes.
In any event, President Trump is wrong that abuses of power are not impeachable. The
Framers focused on the toxic combination of corruption and foreign interference—what George
Washington in his Farewell Address called “one of the most baneful foes of republican
government.”11 James Madison put it simply: The President “might betray his trust to foreign
powers.”12
To the Framers, such an abuse of power was the quintessential impeachable conduct. They
therefore rejected a proposal to limit impeachable offenses to only treason and bribery. They
recognized the peril of setting a rigid standard for impeachment, and adopted terminology that

9

Opp. at 57 n.383.
Opp. at 1-2.
11
George Washington, Farewell Address (Sept. 19, 1796), George Washington Papers, Series 2,
Letterbooks 1754-1799: Letterbook 24, April 3, 1793 – March 3, 1797, Library of Congress.
12
2 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, at 66 (Max Farrand ed., 1911).
10

7

 would encompass what George Mason termed the many “great and dangerous offenses” that might
“subvert the Constitution.”13 The Framers considered and rejected as too narrow the word
“corruption,” deciding instead on the term “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” because it would
encompass the type of “abuse or violation of some public trust”—the abuse of power—that
President Trump committed here.14
2. Impeachable Conduct Need Not Violate Established Law. President Trump argues that a
President’s conduct is impeachable only if it violates a “known offense defined in existing law.”15
That contention conflicts with constitutional text, Congressional precedents, and the overwhelming
consensus of constitutional scholars.
The Framers borrowed the term “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” from British practice and
state constitutions. As that term was applied in England, officials had long been impeached for nonstatutory offenses, such as the failure to spend money allocated by Parliament, disobeying an order
of Parliament, and appointing unfit subordinates.16 The British understood impeachable offenses to
be “so various in their character, and so indefinable in their actual involutions, that it is almost
impossible to provide systematically for them by positive law.”17

13

Id. at 550.
The Federalist No. 65 (Alexander Hamilton); see The Federalist Nos. 68 (Alexander Hamilton);
The Federalist No. 69 (Alexander Hamilton).
15
Opp. at 14-16.
16
Raoul Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems 67-69 (1973).
17
2 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 762 (1833). The
President’s brief selectively quotes Blackstone’s Commentaries for the proposition that impeachment
in Britain required a violation of “known and established law.” Opp. at 15. But that reflected the
well-known and established nature of the parliamentary impeachment process, not some
requirement that the underlying conduct violate a then-existing law. See also 4 William Blackstone,
Commentaries on the Law of England *5 n.7 (1836) (“The word crime has no technical meaning in the law
of England. It seems, when it has a reference to positive law, to comprehend those acts which
subject the offender to punishment. When the words high crimes and misdemeanors are used in
prosecutions by impeachment, the words high crimes have no definite signification, but are used
merely to give greater solemnity to the charge.”).
14

8

 American precedent confirms that the Impeachment Clause is not confined to a statutory
code. The articles of impeachment against President Nixon turned on his abuse of power, rather
than on his commission of a statutory offense. Many of the specific allegations set forth in those
three articles did not involve any crimes. Instead, the House Judiciary Committee emphasized that
President Nixon’s conduct was “undertaken for his own personal political advantage and not in
furtherance of any valid national policy objective”18—and expressly stated that his abuses of power
warranted removal regardless whether they violated a specific statute.19
Previous impeachments were in accord. In 1912, for example, Judge Archibald was
impeached and convicted for using his position to generate business deals with potential litigants in
his court, even though this behavior had not been shown to violate any then-existing statute or laws
regulating judges. The House Manager in the Archibald impeachment asserted that “[t]he decisions
of the Senate of the United States, of the various State tribunals which have jurisdiction over
impeachment cases, and of the Parliament of England all agree that an offense, in order to be
impeachable, need not be indictable either at common law or under any statute.”20 As early as 1803,
Judge Pickering was impeached and then removed from office by the Senate for refusing to allow an
appeal, declining to hear witnesses, and appearing on the bench while intoxicated and thereby
“degrading … the honor and dignity of the United States.”21

18

Impeachment of Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States: Report of the Comm. on the
Judiciary, H. of Representatives, H. Rep. No. 93-1305, at 139 (1974).
19
See id. at 136.
20
Proceedings of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives in the Trial of Impeachment of Robert
W. Archbald, Vol. II, S. Doc. No. 62-1140, at 1399 (1913).
21
Extracts from the Journal of the U.S. Senate in All Cases of Impeachment Presented by the House of
Representatives, 1798-1904, S. Doc. No. 62-876, at 20-22 (1912).

9

 President Trump’s argument conflicts with a long history of scholarly consensus, including
among “some of the most distinguished members of the [Constitutional] convention.”22 As a
leading early treatise on the Constitution explained, impeachable offenses “are not necessarily
offences against the general laws … [for] [i]t is often found that offences of a very serious nature by
high officers are not offences against the criminal code, but consist in abuses or betrayals of trust, or
inexcusable neglects of duty.”23 In his influential 1833 treatise, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story
similarly explained that impeachment encompasses “misdeeds … as peculiarly injure the
commonwealth by the abuse of high offices of trust,” whether or not those misdeeds violate existing
statutes intended for other circumstances.24 Story observed that the focus was not “crimes of a
strictly legal character,” but instead “what are aptly termed, political offences, growing out of
personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests, in
the discharge of the duties of political office.”25
The fact that impeachment is not limited to violations of “established law” reflects its basic
function as a remedy reserved for office-holders who occupy special positions of trust and power.
Statutes of general applicability do not address the ways in which those to whom impeachment
applies may abuse their unique positions. Limiting impeachment only to those statutes would defeat
its basic purpose.
Modern constitutional scholars overwhelmingly agree. That includes one of President
Trump’s own attorneys, who argued during President Clinton’s impeachment: “It certainly doesn’t
have to be a crime, if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president, and who

22

S. Doc. No. 62-1140, at 1401 (1913) (citing 15 The American and English Encyclopedia of Law
1066 (John Houston Merrill ed., 1891)).
23
See Thomas M. Cooley, The General Principles of Constitutional Law 159 (1880).
24
2 Story § 788.
25
Id. § 762.

10

 abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty.”26 More recently, that attorney changed
positions and now maintains that a President cannot be impeached even for allowing a foreign
sovereign to conquer an American State.27 The absurdity of that argument helps explain why it has
been so uniformly rejected.
Even if President Trump were correct that the Impeachment Clause covers only conduct
that violates established law, his argument would fail. President Trump concedes that “high crimes
and misdemeanors” encompasses conduct that is akin to the terms that precede it in the
Constitution—treason and bribery.28 And there can be no reasonable dispute that his misconduct is
closely akin to bribery. “The corrupt exercise of power in exchange for a personal benefit defines
impeachable bribery.”29 Here, President Trump conditioned his performance of a required duty
(disbursement of Congressionally appropriated aid funds to Ukraine) on the receipt of a personal
benefit (the announcement of investigations designed to skew the upcoming election in his favor).
This conduct carries all the essential qualities of bribery under common law and early American
precedents familiar to the Framers.30 It would be all the more wrong in their view because it
involves a solicitation to a foreign government to manipulate our democratic process. And

26

James Walker, Alan Dershowitz Said a “Technical Crime” Wasn’t Needed for Impeachment in
Resurfaced 1998 Interview, Newsweek (Jan. 20, 2020), https://perma.cc/6JCG-2GDW (Dershowitz 1998
Interview).
27
Dershowtiz at 26-27.
28
Opp. at 14.
29
Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States: Report of the Comm. on the Judiciary
of the H. of Representatives, together with Dissenting Views, to Accompany H. Res. 755, H. Rep. No. 116-346,
at 42 n. 207 (2019) (quotation marks omitted); see 2 Story § 794. Notably, President Trump’s
counsel, Professor Dershowitz, indicated in a recent television appearance that he and Professor
Tribe agree on this point. See Dershowitz 1998 Interview, https://perma.cc/6JCG-2GDW.
30
See, e.g., Gilmore v. Lewis, 12 Ohio 281, 286 (1843) (For “public officers, … [i]t is an
indictable offence, in them, to exact and receive any thing, but what the law allows, for the
performance of their legal duties,” because “at common law, being against sound policy, and, quasi,
extortion.”); accord Kick v. Merry, 23 Mo. 72, 75 (1856); United States v. Matthews, 173 U.S. 381, 384-85
(1899) (collecting cases).

11

 President Trump did actually violate an “established law”: the Impoundment Control Act.31 Thus,
even under his own standard, President Trump’s conduct is impeachable.
3. Corrupt Intent May Render Conduct an Impeachable Abuse of Power. President Trump next
contends that the Impeachment Clause does not encompass any abuse of power that turns on the
President’s reasons for acting. Thus, according to President Trump, if he could perform an act for
legitimate reasons, then he necessarily could perform the same act for corrupt reasons.32 That
argument is obviously wrong.
The Impeachment Clause itself forecloses President Trump’s argument. The specific
offenses enumerated in that Clause—bribery and treason—both turn on the subjective intent of the
actor. Treason requires a “disloyal mind” and bribery requires corrupt intent.33 Thus, a President
may form a military alliance with a foreign nation because he believes that doing so is in the Nation’s
strategic interests, but if the President forms that same alliance for the purpose of taking up arms
and overthrowing the Congress, his conduct is treasonous. Bribery turns on similar considerations
of corrupt intent. And, contrary to President Trump’s assertion, past impeachments have concerned
“permissible conduct that had been simply done with the wrong subjective motives.”34 The first and
second articles of impeachment against President Nixon, for example, charged him with using the
powers of his office with the impermissible goals of obstructing justice and targeting his political
opponents—in other words, for exercising Presidential power based on impermissible reasons.35

31

Matter of Office of Mgmt. & Budget—Withholding of Ukraine Sec. Assistance, B-331564 (Comp.
Gen. Jan. 16, 2020), https://perma.cc/5CDX-XLX6.
32
Opp. at 28.
33
Cramer v. United States, 325 U.S. 1, 30-31 (1945) (Treason); United States v. Sun-Diamond
Growers of California, 526 U.S. 398, 404-05 (1999) (Bribery).
34
Opp. at 30.
35
See H. Rep. No. 93-1305 (1974).

12

 There are many acts that a President has “objective” authority to perform that would
constitute grave abuses of power if done for corrupt reasons. A President may issue a pardon
because the applicant demonstrates remorse and meets the standards for clemency, but if a President
issued a pardon in order to prevent a witness from testifying against him, or in exchange for
campaign donations, or for other corrupt motives, his conduct would be impeachable—as our
Supreme Court unanimously recognized nearly a century ago.36 The same principle applies here.
The House Has Proven that President Trump Corruptly Pressured Ukraine to
Interfere in the Presidential Election for His Personal Benefit
President Trump withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid and an important
Oval Office meeting from Ukraine, a vulnerable American ally, in a scheme to extort the Ukrainian
government into announcing investigations that would help President Trump and smear a potential
rival in the upcoming U.S. Presidential election. He has not come close to justifying that
misconduct.
1. President Trump principally maintains that he did not in fact condition the military aid
and Oval Office meeting on Ukraine’s announcement of the investigations—repeatedly asserting
that there was “no quid pro quo.”37 The overwhelming weight of the evidence refutes that assertion.
And President Trump has effectively muzzled witnesses who could shed additional light on the
facts.
Although President Trump argues that he “did not make any connection between the
assistance and any investigation,”38 his own Acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, admitted the
opposite during a press conference—conceding that the investigation into Ukrainian election

36

Ex Parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 122 (1925) (the President could be impeached for using his
pardon power in a manner that destroys the Judiciary’s power to enforce its orders).
37
Statement of Facts ¶ 114.
38
Opp. at 81.

13

 interference was part of “why we held up the money.”39 After a reporter inquired about this
concession of a quid pro quo, Mr. Mulvaney replied, “[W]e do that all the time with foreign policy,”
added, “get over it,” and then refused to explain these statements by testifying in response to a
House subpoena.40 The President’s brief does not even address Mr. Mulvaney’s admission.
Ambassador Taylor also acknowledged the quid pro quo, stating, “I think it’s crazy to withhold
security assistance for help with a political campaign.”41 And Ambassador Sondland testified that
the existence of a quid pro quo regarding the security assistance was as clear as “two plus two equals
four.”42 President Trump’s lawyers also avoid responding to these statements.
The same is true of the long-sought Oval Office meeting. As Ambassador Sondland
testified: “I know that members of this committee frequently frame these complicated issues in the
form of a simple question: Was there a quid pro quo?” He answered that, “with regard to the
requested White House call and the White House meeting, the answer is yes.”43 Ambassador Taylor
reaffirmed the existence of a quid pro quo regarding the Oval Office meeting, testifying that “the
meeting President Zelensky wanted was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma and alleged
Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.” 44 Other witnesses testified similarly.45

39

Statement of Facts ¶ 121.
Id.
41
Id. ¶ 118.
42
Id. ¶ 101.
43
Id. ¶ 52.
44
Transcript, Impeachment Inquiry: Ambassador William B. Taylor and George Kent: Hearing Before
the H. Permanent Select Comm. on Intelligence, 116th Cong. 35 (Nov. 13, 2019) (statement of Ambassador
Taylor).
45
Transcript, Impeachment Inquiry: Fiona Hill and David Holmes: Hearing Before the H. Permanent
Select Comm. on Intelligence, 116th Cong. 18-19 (Nov. 21, 2019) (statement of Mr. Holmes) (“[I]t was
made clear that some action on Burisma/Biden investigation was a precondition for an Oval Office
visit.”).
40

14

 President Trump’s principal answer to this evidence is to point to two conversations in
which he declared to Ambassador Sondland and Senator Ron Johnson that there was “no quid pro
quo.”46 Both conversations occurred after the President had been informed of the whistleblower
complaint against him, at which point he obviously had a strong motive to come up with seemingly
innocent cover stories for his misconduct.
In addition, President Trump’s brief omits the second half of what he told Ambassador
Sondland during their call. Immediately after declaring that there was “no quid pro quo,” the
President insisted that “President Zelensky must announce the opening of the investigations and he
should want to do it.”47 President Trump thus conveyed that President Zelensky “must” announce
the sham investigations in exchange for American support—the very definition of a quid pro quo,
notwithstanding President Trump’s self-serving, false statement to the contrary. Indeed that
statement shows his consciousness of guilt.
President Trump also asserts that there cannot have been a quid pro quo because President
Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have denied that President Trump acted improperly.48 But
the evidence shows that Ukrainian officials understood that they were being used “as a pawn in a
U.S. reelection campaign.”49 It is hardly surprising that President Zelensky has publicly denied the
existence of a quid pro quo given that Ukraine remains critically dependent on continued U.S.
military and diplomatic support, and given that President Zelensky accordingly has a powerful
incentive to avoid angering an already troubled President Trump.

46

See Opp. at 87-88.
Statement of Facts ¶ 114.
48
Opp. at 84-85.
49
Statement of Facts ¶ 68.
47

15

 President Trump’s assertion that the evidence of a quid pro quo cannot be trusted because it
is “hearsay” is incorrect.50 The White House’s readout of the July 25 phone call itself establishes
that President Trump linked military assistance on President Zelensky’s willingness to do him a
“favor”—which President Trump made clear was to investigate former Vice President Biden and
alleged Ukrainian election interference.51 One of the people who spoke directly to President
Trump—and whose testimony therefore was not hearsay—was Ambassador Sondland, who
confirmed the existence of a quid pro quo and provided some of the most damning testimony
against President Trump.52 Other witnesses provided compelling corroborating evidence of the
President’s scheme.53
President Trump’s denials of the quid pro quo are, therefore, plainly false. There is a term
for this type of self-serving denial in criminal cases—a “false exculpatory”—which is strong
evidence of guilt.54 When a defendant “intentionally offers an explanation, or makes some statement
tending to show his innocence, and this explanation or statement is later shown to be false,” such a
false statement tends to show the defendant’s consciousness of guilt.55 President Trump’s denial of
the quid pro quo underscores that he knows his scheme to procure the sham investigations was
improper, and that he is now lying to cover it up.

50

Opp. at 87.
Statement of Facts ¶¶ 75-80.
52
See, e.g., id. ¶ 52.
53
See, e.g., id. ¶¶ 49-67.
54
See, e.g., United States v. Kahan, 415 U.S. 239, 240-41 (1974) (per curiam).
55
United States v. Penn, 974 F.2d 1026, 1029 (8th Cir. 1992).
51

16

 2. President Trump next argues that he withheld urgently needed support for Ukraine for
reasons unrelated to his political interest.56 But President Trump’s asserted reasons for withholding
the military aid and Oval Office meeting are implausible on their face.57
President Trump never attempted to justify the decision to withhold the military aid and
Oval Office meeting on foreign policy grounds when it was underway. To the contrary, President
Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani acknowledged about his Ukraine work that “this isn’t foreign
policy.”58 President Trump sought to hide the scheme from the public and refused to give any
explanation for it even within the U.S. government. He persisted in the scheme after his own
Defense Department warned—correctly—that withholding military aid appropriated by Congress
would violate federal law, and after his National Security Advisor likened the arrangement to a “drug
deal.”59 And he released the military aid shortly after Congress announced an investigation60—in
other words, after he got caught. The various explanations that President Trump now presses are
after-the-fact pretexts that cannot be reconciled with his actual conduct.61
The Anti-Corruption Pretext. The evidence shows that President Trump was actually
indifferent to corruption in Ukraine before Vice President Biden became a candidate for President.

56

Opp. at 89.
As the Supreme Court reiterated in rejecting a different pretextual Trump Administration
scheme, when reviewing the Executive’s conduct, it is not appropriate “to exhibit a naiveté from
which ordinary citizens are free.” Dep’t of Commerce v. New York, 139 S. Ct. 2551, 2575 (2019)
(quoting United States v. Stanchich, 550 F.2d 1294, 1300 (2d Cir. 1977) (Friendly, J.)).
58
Statement of Facts ¶ 18. President Trump’s brief never addresses the role of Mr. Giuliani,
who served as President Trump’s principal agent in seeking an announcement of the investigations.
59
Id. ¶ 59.
60
Id. ¶ 131.
61
After Congress began investigating President Trump’s conduct, the White House
Counsel’s Office reportedly conducted an internal review of “hundreds of documents,” which
“reveal[ed] extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification” for the hold ordered by
President Trump. Josh Dawsey et al., White House Review Turns Up Emails Showing Extensive Effort to
Justify Trump’s Decision to Block Ukraine Military Aid, Wash. Post (Nov. 24, 2019),
https://perma.cc/99TX-5KFE. These documents would be highly relevant in this Senate trial.
57

17

 After Biden’s candidacy was announced, President Trump remained uninterested in anti-corruption
measures in Ukraine beyond announcements of two sham investigations that would help him
personally.62 In fact, he praised a corrupt prosecutor and recalled a U.S. Ambassador known for her
anti-corruption efforts. President Trump did not seek investigations into alleged corruption—as one
would expect if anti-corruption were his goal—but instead sought only announcements of
investigations—because those announcements are what would help him politically.
As Ambassador Sondland testified, President Trump “did not give a [expletive] about
Ukraine,” and instead cared only about “big stuff” that benefitted him personally like “the Biden
investigation.”63 While President Trump asserts that he released the aid in response to Ukraine’s
actual progress on corruption,64 in fact he released the aid two days after Congress announced an
investigation into his misconduct. And President Trump’s claim that the removal of the former
Ukrainian prosecutor general encouraged him to release the aid is astonishing.65 On the July 25 call
with President Zelensky, President Trump praised that very same prosecutor—and Mr. Giuliani
continues to meet with that prosecutor to try to dig up dirt on Vice President Biden to this day.66
The Burden-Sharing Pretext. Until his scheme was exposed, President Trump never attempted
to attribute his hold on military aid to a concern about other countries not sharing the burden of
supporting Ukraine.67 One reason he never attempted to justify the hold on these grounds is that it
is not grounded in reality. Other countries in fact contribute substantially to Ukraine. Since 2014,
the European Union and European financial institutions have committed over $16 billion to
Ukraine.68
62

See Statement of Facts ¶ 88.
Id. ¶ 88.
64
Opp. at 94-95.
65
Opp. at 94.
66
Statement of Facts ¶¶ 81, 144-45.
67
See id. ¶¶ 41-48.
68
See id. ¶¶ 30-32.
63

18

 In addition, President Trump never even asked European countries to increase their
contributions to Ukraine as a condition for releasing the assistance. He released the assistance even
though European countries did not change their contributions. President Trump’s asserted concern
about burden-sharing is impossible to credit given that he kept his own Administration in the dark
about the issue for months, never made any contemporaneous public statements about it, never
asked Europe to increase its contribution,69 and released the aid without any change in Europe’s
contribution only two days after an investigation into his scheme commenced.70
The Burisma Pretext. The conspiracy theory regarding Vice President Biden and Burisma is
baseless. There is no credible evidence to support the allegation that Vice President Biden
encouraged Ukraine to remove one of its prosecutors in an improper effort to protect his son. To
the contrary, Biden was carrying out official U.S. policy—with bipartisan support—when he sought
that prosecutor’s ouster because the prosecutor was known to be corrupt.71 In any event, the
prosecutor’s removal made it more likely that Ukraine would investigate Burisma, not less likely—a
fact that President Trump does not attempt to dispute. The allegations against Biden are based on
events that occurred in late 2015 and early 2016—yet President Trump only began to push Ukraine
to investigate these allegations in 2019, when it appeared likely that Vice President Biden would
enter the 2020 Presidential race to challenge President Trump’s reelection.
The Ukrainian-Election-Interference Pretext. The Intelligence Community, Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, and Special Counsel Mueller all unanimously found that Russia—not
Ukraine—interfered in the 2016 election. President Trump’s own FBI Director confirmed that
American law enforcement has “no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016

69

See id.
See id. ¶ 131.
71
Id.
70

19

 presidential election.”72 In fact, the theory of Ukrainian interference is Russian propaganda—“a
fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services
themselves” to drive a wedge between the United States and Ukraine.73
Thanks to President Trump, this Russian propaganda effort is spreading. In November,
President Vladimir Putin said, “Thank God no one is accusing us of interfering in the U.S. elections
anymore; now they’re accusing Ukraine.”74 President Trump is correct in asserting “that the United
States has a ‘compelling interest … in limiting the participation of foreign citizens in activities of
American democratic self-government”75—and that is exactly why his misconduct is so harmful, and
warrants removal from Office.
II.

PRESIDENT TRUMP MUST BE REMOVED FOR OBSTRUCTING CONGRESS
President Trump has answered the House’s constitutional mandate to enforce its “sole

power of Impeachment”76 with open defiance: obstructing this constitutional process wholesale by
withholding documents, directing witnesses not to appear, threatening those who did, and declaring
both the courts and Congress powerless to compel his compliance. As President Trump flatly
stated, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”77 President
Trump now seeks to excuse his obstruction by falsely claiming that he has been transparent and by
hiding behind hypothetical executive privilege claims that he has never invoked and that do not
apply.

72

Id. ¶ 13.
Id. ¶ 14.
74
‘Thank God': Putin thrilled U.S. 'political battles' over Ukraine taking focus off Russia, Associated
Press (Nov. 20, 2019), https://perma.cc/7ZHY-44CY.
75
Opp. at 100.
76
U.S. Const., Art. I, § 2, cl. 5.
77
Statement of Facts ¶ 164.
73

20

 President Trump’s Claim of Transparency Ignores the Facts
President Trump does not appear to dispute that obstructing Congress during an
impeachment investigation is itself an impeachable offense. He instead falsely insists that he “has
been extraordinarily transparent about his interactions with President Zelensky[].”78
President Trump’s transparency claim bears no resemblance to the facts. In no uncertain
terms, President Trump has stated that “we’re fighting all the subpoenas [from Congress].”79 Later,
through his White House Counsel, President Trump directed the entire Executive Branch to defy
the House’s subpoenas for documents in the impeachment—and as a result not a single document
from the Executive Branch was produced to the House.80 He also demanded that his current and
former aides refuse to testify—and as a result nine Administration officials under subpoena refused
to appear.81 That is a cover-up, and there is nothing transparent about it.
President Trump emphasizes that he publicly released the memorandum of the July 25 call
with President Zelensky. But President Trump did so only after the public had already learned that
he had put a hold on military aid to Ukraine and after the existence of the Intelligence Community
whistleblower complaint became public.82 The fact that President Trump selectively released limited
information under public pressure, only to obstruct the House’s investigation into his corrupt
scheme, does not support his assertion of transparency.

78

Opp. at 35.
Statement of Facts ¶ 164.
80
Id. ¶¶ 179-83.
81
Id. ¶¶ 186-87.
82
See Michael D. Shear & Maggie Haberman, Do Us a Favor”: Call Shows Trump’s Interest in
Using U.S. Power for His Gain, N.Y. Times (Sept. 25, 2019), https://perma.cc/B7P9-BPK2; Karoun
Demirjian et al., Trump Ordered Hold on Military Aid Days Before Calling Ukrainian President, Officials Say,
Wash. Post (Sept. 23, 2019), https://perma.cc/N7PQ-K9WB; Letter from Michael K. Atkinson,
Inspector Gen. of the Intelligence Community, to Chairman Adam Schiff, House Permanent Select
Comm. on Intelligence, and Ranking Member Devin Nunes, House Permanent Select Comm. on
Intelligence (Sept. 9, 2019), https://perma.cc/K78N-SMRR.
79

21

 President Trump Categorically Refused to Comply with the House’s
Impeachment Inquiry
In an impeachment investigation, the House has a constitutional entitlement to information
concerning the President’s misconduct. President Trump’s categorical obstruction would, if
accepted, seriously impair the impeachment process the Framers carefully crafted to guard against
Presidential misconduct.83
President Trump asserts that individualized disputes regarding responses to Congressional
subpoenas do not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.84 But this argument distorts the
categorical nature of his refusal to comply with the House’s impeachment investigation. President
Trump has refused any and all cooperation and ordered his Administration to do the same. No
President in our history has so flagrantly undermined the impeachment process.
President Nixon ordered “[a]ll members of the White House Staff [to] appear voluntarily
when requested by the committee,” to “testify under oath,” and to “answer fully all proper
questions.”85 Even so, the Judiciary Committee voted to impeach him for not fully complying with
House subpoenas when he withheld complete responses to certain subpoenas on executive privilege
grounds. The Committee emphasized that “the doctrine of separation of powers cannot justify the
withholding of information from an impeachment inquiry” because “the very purpose of such an
inquiry is to permit the [House], acting on behalf of the people, to curb the excesses of another
branch, in this instance the Executive.”86 If President Nixon’s obstruction of Congress raised a

83

See The Federalist No. 69 (Alexander Hamilton).
Opp. at 48-54.
85
Remarks by President Nixon (Apr. 17, 1973), reprinted in Statement of Information: Hearings
Before the Comm. on the Judiciary, H. of Representatives: Book IV—Part 2, Events Following the Watergate
Break-in (1974).
86
H. Rep. No. 93-1305, at 208 (1974).
84

22

 “slippery slope” concern, then President Trump’s complete defiance takes us to the “bottom of the
slope, surveying the damage to our Constitution.”87
President Trump’s attempt to fault the House for not using “other tools at its disposal” to
secure the withheld information—such as seeking judicial enforcement of its subpoenas88—is
astonishingly disingenuous. President Trump cannot tell the House that it must litigate the validity
of its subpoenas while simultaneously telling the courts that they are powerless to enforce them.89
President Trump’s Assertion of Invented Immunities Does Not Excuse His
Categorical Obstruction
Having used the power of his office to stonewall the House’s impeachment inquiry,
President Trump has now enlisted his lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office—and coopted
his Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel—to justify the cover-up.90 But his lawyers’
attempts to excuse his obstruction do not work.
One fact is essential to recognize: President Trump has never actually invoked executive privilege.
That is because, under longstanding law, invoking executive privilege would require President
Trump to identify with particularity the documents or communications containing sensitive material

87

H. Rep. No. 116-346, at 161. President Trump’s new lawyer, Kenneth Starr similarly
argued that President Clinton’s assertion of executive privilege in grand jury proceedings, which
“thereby delayed any potential congressional proceedings,” constituted conduct “inconsistent with
the President’s Constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Communication from Kenneth W. Starr,
Independent Counsel, Transmitting a Referral to the United States House of Representatives Filed in Conformity
with the Requirements of Title 28, United States Code, Section 595(c), H. Doc. No. 105-310, at 129, 204
(1998).
88
Opp. at 48-49 & n.336.
89
See Statement of Facts ¶ 192; Def.’s Mot. to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, for Summ. J. at
20, Kupperman v. U.S. House of Representatives, No. 19-3224 (D.D.C. Nov. 14, 2019), ECF No. 40;
Defs.’ and Def.-Intervenors’ Mot. to Dismiss at 46-47, Comm. on Ways & Means v. U.S. Dep’t of the
Treasury, No. 19-1974 (D.D.C. Sept. 6, 2019), ECF No. 44; see also Brief for Def.-Appellant at 2, 3233, Comm. on the Judiciary v. McGahn, No. 19-5331 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 9, 2019).
90
Opp. app’x C (House Committees’ Authority to Investigate for Impeachment, 44 Op. O.L.C. (2020))
at 1-2, 37 (opining that the House’s impeachment investigation was not authorized under the
House’s “sole Power of Impeachment,” U.S. Const., Art. I, § 2, cl. 5).

23

 that he seeks to protect. Executive privilege generally cannot be used to shield misconduct, and it
does not apply here because President Trump and his associates have repeatedly and publicly
discussed the same matters he claims must be kept secret.
President Trump instead maintains that his advisors should be “absolutely immune” from
compelled Congressional testimony.91 But this claim of absolute immunity—which turns on the
theory that certain high-level Presidential advisors are “alter egos” of the President—cannot possibly
justify the decision to withhold the testimony of the lower-level agency officials whom President
Trump ordered not to testify. Regardless, the so-called absolute immunity theory is an invention of
the Executive Branch, and every court to consider this argument has rejected it—including the
Supreme Court in an important ruling requiring President Nixon to disclose the Watergate Tapes.92
In other words, President Trump’s defenses depend on arguments that disgraced former President
Nixon litigated and lost.
President Trump additionally attempts to justify his obstruction on the ground that
Executive Branch counsel were barred from attending House depositions.93 Of course, the absence
of counsel at depositions does not excuse the President’s refusal to disclose documents in response
to the House’s subpoenas. And the decades-old rule excluding agency counsel from House
depositions—first adopted by a Republican House of Representatives majority—exists for good
reasons. It prevents agency officials implicated in Congressional investigations from misleadingly
shaping the testimony of agency employees. It also protects the rights of witnesses to speak freely

91

See Opp. at 43-44.
See United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 706 (1974) (“neither the doctrine of separation of
powers, nor the need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an
absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process”).
93
Opp. at 46-47.
92

24

 and without fear of reprisal94—a protection indisputably necessary here given that President Trump
has repeatedly sought to intimidate and silence witnesses against him.95
President Trump finally maintains that complying with the impeachment inquiry would
somehow violate the constitutional separation of powers doctrine.96 This argument is exactly
backwards. The President cannot reserve the right to be the arbiter of his own privilege—
particularly in an impeachment inquiry designed by the Framers of the Constitution to uncover
Presidential misconduct. The fact that President Trump has found lawyers willing to concoct
theories on which documents or testimony might be withheld is no basis for his refusal to comply
with an impeachment inquiry. The check of impeachment would be little check at all if the law were
otherwise.
III.

THE HOUSE CONDUCTED A CONSTITUTIONALLY VALID IMPEACHMENT PROCESS
As explained in the House Managers’ opening brief, the House conducted a full and fair

impeachment proceeding with robust procedural protections for President Trump, which he
tellingly chose to ignore. The Committees took 100 hours of deposition testimony from 17
witnesses with personal knowledge of key events, and all Members of the Committees as well as
Republican and Democratic staff were permitted to attend and given equal opportunity to ask
questions. The Committees heard an additional 30 hours of public testimony from 12 of those
witnesses, including three requested by the Republicans.97 President Trump’s lawyers were invited to
participate at the public hearings before the Judiciary Committee.98 Rather than do so, he urged the
House: “if you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate.”99
94

See H. Rep. No. 116-346, at 544.
See, e.g., Statement of Facts ¶ 190.
96
Opp. at 36; see id. at 48-54.
97
See Statement of Facts ¶¶ 188-89; H. Rep. No. 116-346, at 130.
98
Statement of Facts ¶ 176.
99
H. Rep. No. 116-346, at 12 (quoting Letter from Pat A. Cipollone, Counsel to the
President, to Jerrold Nadler, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary (Dec. 6, 2019)).
95

25

 But faced with his Senate trial, President Trump now cites a host of procedural hurdles that he
claims the House failed to satisfy. Nobody should be fooled by this obvious gamesmanship.
The Constitution Does Not Authorize President Trump to Second Guess the
House’s Exercise of Its “Sole Power of Impeachment”
President Trump’s attack on the House’s conduct of its impeachment proceedings disregards
the text of the Constitution, which gives the House the “sole Power of Impeachment,”100 and
empowers it to “determine the Rules of its Proceedings.”101 As the Supreme Court has observed,
“the word ‘sole’”—which appears only twice in the Constitution—“is of considerable
significance.”102 In the context of the Senate’s “sole” power over impeachment trials, the Court
stressed that this term means that authority is “reposed in the Senate and nowhere else”103 and that
the Senate “alone shall have authority to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or
convicted.”104 The House’s “sole Power of Impeachment” likewise vests it with the independent
authority to structure its impeachment proceedings in the manner it deems appropriate. The
Constitution leaves no room for President Trump to object to how the House, in the exercise of its
“sole” power to determine impeachment, conducted its proceedings here.
President Trump has no basis to assert that the impeachment inquiry was “flawed from the
start” because it began before a formal House vote was taken.105 Neither the Constitution nor the
House rules requires such a vote.106 And notwithstanding President Trump’s refrain that the
100

U.S. Const., Art. I, § 2, cl. 5.
U.S. Const., Art. I, § 5, cl. 2.
102
Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224, 230 (1993).
103
Id. at 229.
104
Id. at 231.
105
Opp. at 4.
106
One district court presented with this same argument recently concluded that “[i]n cases
of presidential impeachment, a House resolution has never, in fact, been required to begin an
impeachment inquiry,” explaining that the argument “has no textual support in the U.S. Constitution
[or] the governing rules of the House.” In re Application of Comm. on Judiciary, U.S. House of
Representatives, for an Order Authorizing Release of Certain Grand Jury Materials, No. 19-48 (BAH), 2019
101

26

 House’s inquiry “violated every precedent and every principle of fairness followed in impeachment
inquiries for more than 150 years,”107 House precedent makes clear that an impeachment inquiry
does not require a House vote. As even President Trump is forced to acknowledge, several
impeachment inquiries conducted in the House “did not begin with a House resolution authorizing
an inquiry.”108 In fact, the House has impeached several federal judges without ever passing such a
resolution109—and the Senate then convicted and removed them from office.110 Here, by contrast,
the House adopted a resolution confirming the investigating Committees’ authority to conduct their
inquiry into “whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its
Constitutional power to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of
America.”111
President Trump is similarly mistaken that a formal “delegation of authority” to the
Committees was needed at the outset.112 The House adopted its Rules113—“a power that the
Rulemaking Clause [of the Constitution] reserves to each House alone”114—but did not specify rules
that would govern impeachment inquiries. It is thus difficult to understand how the House’s
WL 5485221, at *27 (D.D.C. Oct. 25, 2019). Although both President Trump and the Office of
Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice go to great lengths to criticize the district court’s
analysis, see, e.g., Opp. app’x C at 38 n.261, the Department of Justice tellingly has declined to
advance these arguments in litigation on the appeal of this decision.
107
Opp. at 1.
108
Opp. at 41.
109
See In re Application of Comm. on Judiciary, 2019 WL 5485221, at *26 (citing proceedings
relating to Judges Walter Nixon, Alcee Hastings, and Harry Claiborne).
110
See Proceedings in the United States Senate in the Impeachment Trial of Walter Nixon, Jr., a Judge of
the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, S. Doc. No. 101-22, at 439 (1989);
Proceedings of the United States Senate in the Impeachment Trial of Alcee L. Hastings, a Judge of the United States
District Court for the Southern District of Florida, S. Doc. No. 101-18, at 705 (1989); Proceedings of the United
States Senate in the Impeachment Trial of Harry E. Claiborne, a Judge of the United States District Court for the
District of Nevada, S. Doc. No. 99-48, at 298 (1986).
111
H. Res. 660, 116th Cong. (2019); Statement of Facts ¶ 162.
112
See Opp. at 37-38.
113
See H. Res. 6, 116th Cong. (2019).
114
Barker v. Conroy, 921 F.3d 1118, 1130 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (quotation marks omitted).

27

 impeachment inquiry could violate its rules or delegation authority. Not only did Speaker Pelosi
instruct the Committees to proceed with an “impeachment inquiry,”115 but in passing H. Res. 660,
the full House “directed” the Committees to “continue their ongoing investigations as part of the
existing House of Representatives inquiry” into impeachment.116
President Trump is wrong that the subpoenas were “unauthorized and invalid” because they
were not approved in advance by the House.117 There is no requirement in either the Constitution
or the House Rules that the House vote on subpoenas. Indeed, such a requirement would be
inconsistent with the operations of the House, which in modern times largely functions through its
Committees.118 The absence of specific procedures prescribing how the House and its Committees
must conduct impeachment inquiries allows those extraordinary inquiries to be conducted in the
manner the House deems most fair, efficient, and appropriate. But even assuming a House vote on
the subpoenas was necessary, there was such a vote here. When it adopted H. Res. 660, the House
understood that numerous subpoenas had already been issued as part of the impeachment inquiry.
As the Report accompanying the Resolution explained, these “duly authorized subpoenas” issued to
the Executive Branch “remain in full force.”119

115

Statement of Facts ¶ 161.
Id. ¶ 162; see H. Res. 660.
117
Opp. at 37; see Opp. at 41.
118
See, e.g., House Rule XI.1(b)(1) (authorizing standing committees of the House to
“conduct at any time such investigations and studies as [they] consider[] necessary or appropriate”);
see also id. X1.2(m)(1)(B) (authorizing committees to “require, by subpoena or otherwise, the
attendance and testimony of such witnesses and the production of such books, records,
correspondence, memoranda, papers, and documents as [they] consider[] necessary”).
119
Directing Certain Committees to Continue Their Ongoing Investigations as Part of the Existing House
of Representatives Inquiry into Whether Sufficient Grounds Exist for the House of Representatives to Exercise its
Constitutional Power to Impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, and for Other
Purposes, H. Rep. No. 116-266, at 3 (2019).
116

28

 President Trump Received Fair Process
As his lawyers well know, the various criminal trial rights that President Trump demands
have no place in the House’s impeachment process.120 It is not a trial, much less a criminal trial to
which Fifth or Sixth Amendment guarantees would attach. The rights President Trump has
demanded have never been recognized in any prior Presidential impeachment investigation, just as
they have never been recognized for a person under investigation by a grand jury—a more apt
analogy to the House’s proceedings here.
Although President Trump faults the House for not allowing him to participate in
depositions and witness interviews, no President has ever been permitted to participate during this
initial fact-finding process. For example, the Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment
found “[n]o record … of any impeachment inquiry in which the official under investigation
participated in the investigation stage preceding commencement of Committee hearings.”121 In both
the President Nixon and President Clinton impeachment inquiries, the President’s counsel was not
permitted to participate in or even attend depositions and interviews of witnesses.122 And in both
cases, the House relied substantially on investigative findings by special prosecutors and grand juries,
neither of which allowed the participation of the target of the investigation.123 Indeed, the reasons
grand jury proceedings are kept confidential—“to prevent subornation of perjury or tampering with
the witnesses who may testify before grand jury” and “encourage free and untrammeled disclosures

120

Opp. at 57.
H. Rep. No. 116-346, at 19 (quoting Impeachment Inquiry Staff, H. Comm. on the
Judiciary, Memorandum: Presentation Procedures for the Impeachment Inquiry 11, 93d Cong. (1974)).
122
Id. at 19, 21.
123
See id. at 17-22.
121

29

 by persons who have information,”124—apply with special force here, given President Trump’s
chilling pattern of witness intimidation.125
In his litany of process complaints, President Trump notably omits the fact that his counsel
could have participated in the proceedings before the Judiciary Committee in multiple ways. The
President, through his counsel, could have objected during witness examinations, cross-examined
witnesses, and submitted evidence of his own.126 President Trump simply chose not to have his
counsel do so. Having deliberately chosen not to avail himself of these procedural protections,
President Trump cannot now pretend they did not exist.
Nor is the President entitled to have the charges against him proven beyond a reasonable
doubt.127 That burden of proof is applicable in criminal trials, where lives and liberties are at stake,
not in impeachments. For this reason, the Senate has rejected the proof-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt
standard in prior impeachments128 and instead has “left the choice of the applicable standard of
proof to each individual Senator.”129 Once again, President Trump’s lawyers well know this fact.
President Trump’s contention that the Articles of Impeachment must fail on grounds of
“duplicity” is wrong. President Trump alleges that the Articles are “structurally deficient” because
they “charge[] multiple different acts as possible grounds for sustaining a conviction.”130 But this
simply repeats the argument from the impeachment trial of President Clinton, which differed from
President Trump’s impeachment in this critical respect. Where the articles charged President
124

United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., 356 U.S. 677, 681 n.6 (1958).
Statement of Facts ¶¶ 177, 190.
126
Statement of Facts ¶ 163; 165 Cong. Rec. E1357 (2019) (Impeachment Inquiry
Procedures in the Committee on the Judiciary Pursuant to H. Res. 660); see id. at (A)(3), (B)(2)–(3),
(C)(1)–(2), (4).
127
Opp. at 20-21.
128
See, e.g., 132 Cong. Rec. S29124-94 (daily ed. October 7, 1986).
129
Cong. Research Serv., 98-990 A, Standard of Proof in Senate Impeachment Proceedings 6 (1999),
https://perma.cc/9YKG-TJLH.
130
Opp. at 107-09.
125

30

 Clinton with engaging in “one or more” of several acts,131 the Articles of Impeachment against
President Trump do not. This difference distinguishes President Trump’s case from President
Clinton’s—where, in any event, the Senate rejected the effort to have the articles of impeachment
dismissed as duplicitous. The bottom line is that the House knew precisely what it was doing when
it drafted and adopted the Articles of Impeachment against President Trump, and deliberately
avoided the possible problem raised in the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.
*

*

*

There was no procedural flaw in the House’s impeachment inquiry. But even assuming
there were, that would be irrelevant to the Senate’s separate exercise of its “sole Power to try all
Impeachments.”132 Any imagined defect in the House’s previous proceedings could be cured when
the evidence is presented to the Senate at trial. President Trump, after all, touted his desire to “have
a fair trial in the Senate.”133 And as President Trump admits, it is the Senate’s “constitutional duty to
decide for itself all matters of law and fact bearing upon this trial.”134 Acquitting President Trump
on baseless objections to the House’s process would be an abdication by the Senate of this duty.

131

H. Res. 611, 105th Cong. (1998).
U.S. Const., Art. I, § 3, cl. 6. See also Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224, 229-31 (1993).
133
H. Rep. No. 116-346, at 12 (quoting Letter from Pat A. Cipollone, Counsel to the
President, to Jerrold Nadler, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary (Dec. 6, 2019)).
134
Opp. at 13.
132

31

 Respectfully submitted,
United States House of Representatives
Adam B. Schiff
Jerrold Nadler
Zoe Lofgren
Hakeem S. Jeffries
Val Butler Demings
Jason Crow
Sylvia R. Garcia
U.S. House of Representatives Managers*

January 21, 2020

*

The House Managers wish to acknowledge the assistance of the following individuals in
preparing this reply memorandum: Douglas N. Letter, Megan Barbero, Josephine Morse, Adam A.
Grogg, William E. Havemann, Jonathan B. Schwartz, Christine L. Coogle, Lily Hsu, and Nate King
of the House Office of General Counsel; Daniel Noble, Daniel S. Goldman, and Maher Bitar of the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Norman L. Eisen, Barry H. Berke, Joshua
Matz, and Sophia Brill of the House Committee on the Judiciary; the investigative staff of the House
Committee on Oversight and Reform; and David A. O’Neil, Anna A. Moody, David Sarratt, Laura
E. O’Neill, and Elizabeth Nielsen.
32