Donald Trump himself is Democrats’ star witness (Opinion)

Editor’s Note: In this weekly column “Cross-Exam,” Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst and former federal and state prosecutor, gives his take on the latest legal news. Watch Honig answer reader questions on “CNN Newsroom with Ana Cabrera” at 5:40 p.m. CNN — Now that House Democrats have announced they will introduce two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump – one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress – the focus will turn to the evidence supporting those charges at a seemingly inevitable Senate trial. Even though the House has not included Mueller’s findings on obstruction of justice as a freestanding article of impeachment, it’s clear they will come up because House Democrats mentioned in their draft of articles of impeachment that the President’s actions were “consistent with previous invitations of interference in the United States election.” The very day after Mueller testified that Russia had interfered in our 2016 election to benefit Trump, and would try to do so again in 2020, Trump had his infamous July 25 phone call with Zelensky, during which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens. As House Intelligence Committee Democrats wrote in their report on the Ukraine investigation, “President Trump engaged in an unprecedented campaign of obstruction of this impeachment inquiry.” Republicans counter that the President has a right to challenge subpoenas in court, and that it is an overreach to impeach merely because the administration has resisted subpoenas based on legal disagreement. Democrats argue that Trump’s obstruction efforts go well beyond good-faith legal arguments; Trump himself announced a blanket stonewalling policy: “We’re fighting all the subpoenas.” In fact, Trump’s obstructive conduct here goes beyond that of former President Richard Nixon, who defied some Congressional subpoenas but complied with others – resulting in a draft article of impeachment against Nixon for obstruction of Congress.