About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 26, 2020)
TODAYS TOP HEADLINES The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com Sunday, January 26, 2020 3A Trump’s team rebuts President’s lawyers argue Dems just want to overturn election MANUEL BALCE CENETAI Associated Press Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., with Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 25, as the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress concluded for the day. Pompeo lashes out at reporter over Ukraine BY ERIC TUCKER, LISA MASCARO AND ZEKE MILLER Associated Press WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump’s lawyers plunged into his impeachment trial defense Saturday by accusing Democrats of striving to overturn the 2016 election, arguing that investigations of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine have not been a fact-finding mission but a politically motivated effort to drive him from the White House. “They’re here to per petrate the most massive interference in an elec tion in American history,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone told senators. “And we can’t allow that to happen.” The Trump legal team’s arguments in the rare Sat urday session were aimed at rebutting allegations that the president abused his power when he asked Ukraine to investigate polit ical rival Joe Biden and then obstructed Congress as it tried to investigate. The lawyers are mounting a wide-ranging, aggres sive defense asserting an expansive view of presi dential powers and portray ing Trump as besieged by political opponents deter mined to ensure he won’t be reelected this November. Though Trump is the one on trial, the defense team made clear that it intends to paint the impeachment case as a mere continua tion of the investigations that have shadowed the president since before he took office — including one into allegations of Russian election interference on his behalf. Trump attorney Jay Sekulow suggested Demo crats were investigating the president over Ukraine sim ply because they couldn’t bring him down for Russia. “That — for this,” said Sekulow, holding up a copy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which he accused Democrats of attempting to “relitigate.” That report detailed ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia but did not allege a criminal con spiracy to tip the election. His team made only a two-hour presentation, reserving the heart of its case for Monday. Acquittal appears likely, given that Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and a two-thirds vote would be required for conviction and removal from office. Republican senators already eager to clear Trump said Saturday that the White House pre sentation had shredded the Democratic case. Trump’s defense team took center stage following three days of methodi cal and passionate argu ments from Democrats, who wrapped up Friday by warning that Trump will persist in abusing his power and endangering American democracy unless Congress intervenes to remove him before the 2020 election. They also implored Republi cans to allow new testimony to be heard before senators render a final verdict. Republicans argued that there was no evidence that Trump made the security aid contingent on Ukraine announcing an investiga tion into the Bidens and that Ukraine didn’t even know that the money had been paused until shortly before it was released. Trump had reason to be concerned about corrup tion in Ukraine and the aid was ultimately released, they said. “Most of the Democratic witnesses have never spo ken to the president at all, let alone about Ukraine security assistance,” said deputy White House Coun sel Michael Purpura. Purpura told the senators the July 25 call in which Trump asked Ukraine Pres ident Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the Biden investigation was consistent with the president’s concerns about corruption, though Trump never mentioned that word, according to the rough tran script released by the White House. Purpura said everyone knows that when Trump asked Zelenskiy to “do us a favor,” he meant the U.S., not himself. “This entire impeach ment process is about the house managers’ insistence that they are able to read everybody’s thoughts,” Sekulow said. “They can read everybody’s intention. Even when the principal speakers, the witnesses themselves, insist that those interpretations are wrong.” BY LYNN BERRY Associated Press WASHINGTON - Secre tary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out in anger Satur day at an NPR reporter who accused him of shouting expletives at her after she asked him in an interview about Ukraine. In a direct and personal attack, America’s chief diplomat said the journalist had “lied” to him and he called her conduct “shameful.” NPR said it stood by Mary Louise Kel ly’s reporting. Pompeo claimed in a statement that the incident was “another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt” President Donald Trump and his administration. Pompeo, a former CIA director and Republican congressman from Kansas who is one of Trump’s closest allies in the Cabinet, asserted, “It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so con sistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity.” It is extraordinary for a sec retary of state to make such a personal attack on a journal ist, but he is following the lead of Trump, who has repeatedly derided what he calls “fake news” and ridiculed individ ual reporters. In Friday’s interview, Pompeo responded tes tily when Kelly asked him about Ukraine and specifi cally whether he defended or should have defended Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv whose ouster figured in Trump’s impeachment. “I have defended every State Department official,” he said. “We’ve built a great team. The team that works here is doing amazing work around the world ... I’ve defended every single person on this team. I’ve done what’s right for every single person on this team.” This has been a sensitive point for Pompeo. As a Trump loyalist, he has been publicly silent as the president and his allies have dispar aged the nonpartisan career diplomats, including Yovano vitch, who have testified in the impeachment hearings. Those diplomats told Congress that Trump risked undermining Ukraine, a critical U.S. ally, by pressuring for an investiga tion of Democrat Joe Biden, a Trump political rival. Yovanovitch, who was seen by Trump allies as a road block to those efforts, was told in May to leave Ukraine and return to Washington imme diately for her own safety. After documents released this month from an associate of Trump’s personal attor ney suggested she was being watched and possibly under threat, Pompeo took three days to address the matter and did so only after coming under harsh criticism from lawmakers and current and former diplomats. Pompeo, in his statement, did not deny shouting at Kelly and did not apologize. Instead, he accused her of lying to him when setting up the interview, which he apparently expected would be limited to questions about Iran, and for supposedly agreeing not to discuss the post-interview meeting. Pompeo Xi calls situation grave as China scrambles to contain virus BY KEN M0RITSUGU Associated Press BEIJING — China’s leader on Saturday called the accel erating spread of a new virus a grave situation, as cities from the outbreak’s epicen ter in central China to Hong Kong scrambled to contain an illness that has infected more than 1,200 people and killed 41. President Xi Jinping’s remarks, reported by state broadcaster CCTV, came at a meeting of Communist Party leaders convened on Lunar New Year — the country’s biggest holiday whose cel ebrations have been muted — and underlined the gov ernment’s urgent, expand ing efforts to control the outbreak. Travel agencies have been told to halt all group tours, the state-owned English- language China Daily news paper reported, citing the China Association of Travel Services. Millions of people travel ing during the holiday have fueled the spread of the out break nationwide and over seas after it began in the city of Wuhan in central China. The vast majority of the infec tions and all the deaths have been in mainland China, but fresh cases are popping up. Australia and Malaysia reported their first cases Saturday — four each —and Japan, its third. Canada reported its first case Saturday in Toronto. Officials said the man is his 50s and recently flew from Wuhan to Guangzhou, China and then on to Toronto on Jan. 23. France confirmed three cases Friday, the first in Europe, and the U.S. identi fied its second, a woman in her 60s in Chicago who had returned from China. The woman returned on Jan. 13 without showing any signs of illness, but three or four days later she called her doctor to report feeling sick. In the heart of the outbreak where 11 million residents are already on lockdown, Wuhan banned most vehicle use, including private cars, in downtown areas starting Sun day, state media reported. Only authorized vehicles would be permitted, the reports said. The city will assign 6,000 taxis to neighborhoods, under the management of resident committees, to help people get around if they need to, China Daily said. In Hong Kong, leader Car rie Lam said her government will raise its response level to emergency, the highest one, and close primary and sec ondary schools for two more weeks on top of next week’s Lunar New Year holiday. They will reopen Feb. 17. Lam said direct flights and trains from Wuhan would be blocked. In a sign of the growing strain on Wuhan’s health care system, the official Xin hua news agency reported that the city planned to build a second makeshift hospital with about 1,000 beds. The city has said another hospi tal was expected to be com pleted Feb. 3. The new virus comes from a large family of what are known as coronavi- ruses, some causing nothing worse than a cold. It causes cold- and flu-like symptoms, including cough and fever, and in more severe cases, shortness of breath. It can worsen to pneumonia, which can be fatal. China cut off trains, planes and other links to Wuhan on Wednesday, as well as public transportation within the city, and has steadily expanded a lockdown to 16 surrounding cities with a combined popu lation of more than 50 million — greater than that of New York, London, Paris and Mos cow combined. China’s biggest holiday, Lunar New Year, unfolded Saturday in the shadow of the virus. Authorities canceled a host of events, and closed major tourist destinations and movie theaters. People in China wore medical masks to public places like grocery stores, where workers dispensed hand sanitizer to customers. Some parts of the country had checkpoints for temperature readings and made masks mandatory. The National Health Com mission reported a jump in the number of infected peo- from 29 provinces and cities across China, included 237 patients in serious condition. Of the 41 deaths, 39 have been in Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital city. Most of the deaths have been older patients, though a 36-year-old man in Hubei died this week. The National Health Com mission said it is bringing in medical teams to help handle the outbreak, a day after vid eos circulating online showed throngs of frantic people in masks lined up for exami nations and complaints that family members had been turned away at hospitals that were at capacity. The Chinese military dis patched 450 medical staff, some with experience in past outbreaks, including SARS and Ebola, who arrived in Wuhan late Friday to help treat many patients hospital ized with viral pneumonia, Xinhua reported. Xinhua also said medical supplies are being rushed to the city, including 14,000 protective suits, 110,000 pairs of gloves and masks and goggles. The rapid increase in reported deaths and illnesses does not necessarily mean the crisis is getting worse but could reflect better monitor ing and reporting of the virus. It is not clear how lethal the new coronavirus is or even whether it is as dangerous as the ordinary flu, which kills tens of thousands of people every year in the U.S. alone. pie, to 1,287. The latest tally, HULSEY PLUMBING SSMSSIim RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL f f U™ VuD" I ID I ***** PLUMBING SEPTIC WATER HEATERS DRAINS www.HulseyPlumbing.com Start earning today! 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