Trump brief assails impeachment, demands immediate acquittal

President Donald Trump's lawyers submitted a trial brief Monday calling his impeachment by the House "a dangerous perversion" of the US constitution and demanding his immediate acquittal by the Senate.

Almost simultaneously, House impeachment managers responded to an earlier Trump filing, saying the president had engaged in "corrupt conduct... to cheat in the next election" and that the Senate should remove him from office "following a fair trial."
The brief said the theories underpinning them "would do lasting damage to the separation of powers under the Constitution."
One source working with the president's legal team told AFP the impeachment process was "illegitimate from the start," adding, "The president did nothing wrong."
The 171-page brief maintained that the impeachment articles are "the product of an unprecedented and unconstitutional process that denied the president every basic right."
The brief from the House managers, all Democrats, accused Trump of using "presidential powers to pressure a vulnerable foreign partner to interfere in our elections for his own benefit."
It added, "In doing so, he jeopardised our national security and our democratic self-governance."
"He then used his presidential powers to orchestrate a cover-up unprecedented in the history of our republic."
To the assertion by Trump's lawyers that the Senate could not remove him even if all charges in the articles are proved, the House briefers replied, "That is a chilling assertion. It is also dead wrong."