Trump complains his attorneys will not get to present impeachment defense until Saturday

President Trump on Friday complained that his attorneys would not get to present his defense in the Senate impeachment trial until Saturday, calling that day “Death Valley in T.V.”

“After having been treated unbelievably unfairly in the House, and then having to endure hour after hour of lies, fraud & deception by Shifty Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer & their crew, looks like my lawyers will be forced to start on Saturday, which is called Death Valley in T.V.,” Trump tweeted early Friday, airing his usual grievances about the House process being unfair.

After having been treated unbelievably unfairly in the House, and then having to endure hour after hour of lies, fraud & deception by Shifty Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer & their crew, looks like my lawyers will be forced to start on Saturday, which is called Death Valley in T.V.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2020

The president’s message was among several tweets and retweets he sent Friday morning, the vast majority of them focusing on impeachment.

Trump is a voracious consumer of news media and has been watching parts of the impeachment trial, according to remarks he made earlier this week while in Davos, Switzerland.

Last week, he rolled out a legal team stacked with a number of high-profile and television-ready attorneys, including Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated former President Clinton.

Trump’s legal team is led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his personal attorney Jay Sekulow, who both made appearances on the Senate floor during Tuesday’s debate of the trial rules, which they supported.

Under the rules approved by the GOP-controlled Senate, the House impeachment managers are afforded 24 hours over three days to present their case for why Trump should be removed from office over allegations he abused his power and obstructed the congressional impeachment inquiry into his dealings with Ukraine.

Trump’s attorneys have an equal amount of time spread over an equal number of days to present his case. No Senate Democrats voted for the trial rules approved by the upper chamber earlier this week largely because they delayed a vote on potential witnesses until after the opening arguments by both sides.

After two long days of opening arguments from House Democrats, the Senate will reconvene at 1 p.m. Friday for the impeachment managers’ final day of arguments, which is likely to extend into the evening. Democrats’ arguments have not seemed to move any GOP senators to vote to remove Trump, and the White House expects the president to be acquitted at the conclusion of the trial. 

Trump’s attorneys contested the allegations against Trump in a brief filed earlier this week and have accused House Democrats of a “brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election.” They are expected to begin their arguments defending Trump and describing the impeachment articles as constitutionally invalid on Saturday.

Trump said from Davos on Wednesday that he was impressed by the “emotion” he saw from Cipollone during his first appearance on the Senate floor and that he believed the team performed very well.

“Pat is a brilliant guy, but I’ve never seen that emotion. And that’s real emotion,” Trump told reporters at a press conference. “That’s because he knows this is a hoax. And I was very proud of the job he did.”