Speaking to reporters today after Team Trump concluded its first day of opening arguments in the impeachment trial, Senator Tim Kaine concisely outlined Trump’s suspicious behavior around the withholding of Ukraine aid ,and then pointed out that by defending it, his defenders had just made the case for hearing witnesses and seeing documents even stronger.
So let me give you an example: Jay Sekulow says well, the president paused aid to other countries. That's true. But when he went through the examples, he paused aid to the northern tribal countries and he announced he was doing it. He paused aid to Lebanon and announced he was doing it. I believe there's only one instance where President Trump paused aid to a country, in this case Ukraine, and hid it from Congress. He hid it from Congress in violation of the Impoundment Control Act, he hid it from Congress by not turning the whistleblower complaint over.
So if they only withheld aid once and tried to hide it, why did they try to hide it in this instance where they made it public in all the other instances? So, I don't really think they poked holes in the case. But I will say this, they asserted facts which can easily be proven or disproven if witnesses and documents are available, as they would be in a trial in any court in this country.
Later, Kaine reiterated more explicitly how the defense team had strengthened the Democrats’ argument:
As Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe pointed out, the only reason for refusing to allow witnesses and other evidence is because Trump and his Republican toadies are afraid of the facts.
