Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel dissect Trump's impeachment defense, 'all-star defense team'
Over the weekend, House impeachment managers laid out their case that President Trump was "the Framers' worst nightmare" and should be removed from office for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, Stephen Colbert said on Monday's Late Show. "In response, the president's lawyers say that abuse of power is not impeachable. Yes it is! It's the most powerful job in the world! That's why abuse of power is the thing a president is not supposed to do."
"With his presidency on the line, Trump is turning to his favorite legal scholar: television," Colbert said. Among the TV lawyers Trump hired is Alan Dershowitz, whose list of past clients is ... notable. Colbert turned on his Trump voice: "Get me Dershowitz! I'm exactly as innocent as Jeffrey Epstein and O.J. Simpson — but Jared, just in case, gas up the Bronco." Dershowitz is going on TV arguing Trump's technically-it-wasn't-a-crime impeachment defense, and Colbert played his exact opposite argument in Bill Clinton's impeachment, plus a doozy of a Dershowtiz quote from Richard Nixon's impeachment.
Trump's "all-star defense team" does include Dershowitz, who's past clients also include Claus von Bülow and Harvey Weinstein, "so he definitely has a type," Jimmy Kimmel deadpanned at Kimmel Live. But "Trump summoned all the ghosts of impeachments past, including Kenneth Starr, who led the case against Clinton and was attacked for it by a number of high-profile people," including Trump.
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"Rudy Giuliani will not be on the Trump legal team, but he claims he wants to testify," though "Senate Republicans don't want any witnesses, and they're limiting press access," Kimmel said. "These guys really are something: They don't want witnesses, they don't want new evidence, they don't want reporting, and they don't want people watching — it's almost like they have something to hide. But what could that be? The phone call was 'perfect.'"
Trump is "desperately trying to soothe his ego and pretend he doesn't know the key players in the scandal," but he "knows that ultimately, in the eyes of history, it won't matter whether Republicans successfully rig his impeachment trial to let him off the hook," Late Night's Seth Meyers argued. "No matter what, he will be only the third president in history to face such a trial, and it follows him forever, especially as more damning evidence emerges." Watch below. Peter Weber
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