Jay Sekulow, a member of President Trump's defense team, noted that impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) invoked the phrase "quid pro quo" when talking about Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Sekulow told reporters on Wednesday the reason why quid pro quo was noteworthy is that Trump is not being impeached on the act since it is not one of the two articles of impeachment. A majority of Democrats in the House voted to impeach Trump on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Adam Schiff is entitled to his own fairy tales, but not his own facts.
— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) January 22, 2020
Amb. Gordon Sondland's "quid pro quo" statement fell apart under pointed GOP questioning during the House Intel Committee hearing.
He was forced to admit he was presuming things.
Let's tell the truth here. pic.twitter.com/JxSy88rFdj
"There’s a lot of things I’d like to rebut and we will rebut. I think we said it yesterday, first of all, you notice that Adam Schiff today talked about quid pro quo. Notice what’s not in the articles of impeachment. Allegations or accusations of quid pro quo," Sekulow said. "That’s because they didn’t exist. So, you know, there is a lot of things we’ll rebut but we will do it in an orderly and I hope more systematic fashion."
Sekulow explained that he was unable to say definitively if Trump's defense team will take up all 24 hours that have been allotted to both sides.
"We have to base it on what they do," he said.
"Obviously, we will challenge aggressively the case that they’re putting forward based on what we are hearing, and we also have an affirmative case that we’ll make as well. So we’ll do both," he added.
The Senate's impeachment trial is now in its second day after finishing in the very early morning hours on Wednesday after starting on Tuesday afternoon.