WASHINGTON, D.C. – One of the defining moments of the 2021 impeachment trial against President Donald J. Trump was the moment defense attorney Michael Van Der Veen turned the tables on the Democrats poor investigation leading up to the impeachment trial. When Democrats wanted to call witnesses, Van Der Veen said he’s ok with that. In fact, he’ll call 100 witnesses.
“But if they want to have witnesses, I’m going to need at least over 100 depositions, not just one. The real issue is incitement. They put into their case over 100 witnesses, people, who have been charged with crimes by the federal government. And each one of those, they said that Mr. Trump was a co-conspirator with. That’s not true, but I had the right to defend that. The only thing that I ask if you vote for witnesses, do not handcuff me by limiting the number of witnesses that I can have. I need to do a thorough investigation that they did not do. I need to do the 911 style investigation that Nancy Pelosi called for. It should have been done already. It’s a dereliction of the House manager’s duty that they didn’t,” he said.
“And now at the last minute, after a stipulation had apparently been worked out, they want to go back on that. I think that’s inappropriate and improper. We should close this case out today. We have each prepared our closing arguments,” he said. “I mean, I had eight days to get ready for this thing, but we each had those eight days equally together to prepare ourselves, and the House managers need to live with the case that they brought. But if they don’t, please, in all fairness in an all due process, do not limit my ability to discover, discover, discover the truth. That would be another sham, and that’s the president’s position, my position.”