USA: Trump's defence team presents closing arguments at impeachment trial

*BUG AT SOURCE**NO CUTAWAYS AT SOURCE*
W/S President Donald Trump's impeachment trial in Washington DC *NO SOUND AT SOURCE*
SOT, Patrick Philbin, Trump impeachment lawyer: "All of the steps that the framers took in the way they approached the impeachment clause were in terms of narrowing, restricting, constraining, enumerating offences and not a vague and malleable approach as there had been in the English system."
SOT, Patrick Philbin, Trump impeachment lawyer: "They don't have a standard that really defines a specific offence. They don't have a standard that really defines in coherent terms that are going to be identifiable what the offences are."
SOT, Patrick Philbin, Trump impeachment lawyer: "And what we see in the House managers charges and their definition of abuse of power is exactly antithetical to the framers approach because their very premise for their abuse of power charge is that it is entirely based on subjective motive, not objective standards, not predefined offences. But the president can do something that is perfectly lawful, perfectly within his authority. But if the real reason, as Professor Dershowitz pointed out, that's the language from their report, the reason in the president's mind is something that they ferret out and decide is wrong, that becomes impeachable. And that's exact that's not a standard at all. It ends up being infinitely malleable."
SOT, Patrick Philbin, Trump impeachment lawyer: "And they explain in the House Judiciary Committee report that the way we'll tell if the president had the wrong motive is we'll compare what he did to what staffers in the executive branch said he ought to do. So they say, quote, that the president, quote, disregarded United States foreign policy towards Ukraine end quote. And that he ignored, quote unquote, official policy that he had been briefed on and that he, quote, ignored, defied and confounded every agency within the executive branch. End quote. That is not a constitutionally coherent statement. The president cannot defy agencies within the executive branch. Article two section one of the constitution vests all of the executive power in a president of the United States, he alone is an entire branch of government, he sets policy for the executive branch."
M/S Philbin leaving podium as he finishes speaking
SCRIPT
US President Donald Trump's defence team presented arguments on the fifth day of the impeachment trial in Washington DC on Tuesday.
The impeachment lawyer Patrick Philbin blamed the Democrats' House managers for a lack of standards in defining the offences Trump is charged with.
The lawyer claimed that the definition of the 'abuse of power' charge was "entirely based on subjective motive, not objective standards, not predefined offences."
Philbin went on saying "the president can do something that is perfectly lawful, perfectly within his authority", however, if "the reason in the president's mind is something that they ferreted out and decide is wrong, that becomes impeachable", alleging that the charges were presented in a subjective and "malleable" way.
Trump is facing impeachment over charges of abuse of power as well as obstruction of Congress, but with a Republican majority in the Senate and a super-majority required for a conviction, the president looks set to remain in office.