一位宪法学者表示，参议员林赛·格雷厄姆谴责众议院弹劾唐纳德·特朗普总统调查的决议“完全没有实质内容”，而且充满了“虚假的反对意见”

决议由南卡罗来纳州共和党人带来，在撰写本报告时由他在参议院的46名党内同事共同签署。它指责众议院民主党在弹劾调查中缺乏正当程序和透明度。

该决议的抱怨包括，众议院尚未投票决定启动弹劾调查，证人迄今已提供闭门证词，特朗普被剥夺了针对该过程中出现的指控为自己辩护的权利。

特朗普的白宫是拒绝参与弹劾调查因为它认为总统被剥夺了正当程序。它不遵守国会传票，并指示政府官员和特朗普的相关人员也这样做。

卡尔·勒布大学教授、哈佛大学宪法学教授、特朗普的著名评论家劳伦斯·特里布告诉我们，“格雷厄姆参议员的决议绝对没有实质内容。”新闻周刊。

“我仔细查看了它，看看它的任何过程投诉在历史上、法律上或道德上是否有意义。我觉得里面没有什么值得认真对待的。

“事实上，它完全集中在对完全公平和传统的程序的虚假反对上，这充分说明共和党参议员在为总统为了自己的个人利益推翻一个脆弱的盟友时，没有什么可为自己辩护的。”

耶鲁大学优秀国际法教授哈罗德·洪菊·科告诉记者新闻周刊格雷厄姆的决议是“法律上无知的转移视线”

Koh说:“即使这种诉讼方式并没有得到众议院规则的全部授权，共和党人自己也采用了这种规则来管理班加西听证会，格雷厄姆想要的正当程序保护只是在参议院弹劾审判中附加，而不是在众议院的指控阶段，这更像是一个更私人的大陪审团程序。”。

“在指控阶段，私人诉讼是有正当理由的，这样证人就不会通过公开证词来比较和整理故事(尽管正在出现的信息非常一致)。

“每个人都知道，无论如何，收集的信息将在几周内公开，届时波托斯和他的人民将有充分的机会反驳。”

密苏里大学弗洛伊德·吉布森·密苏里捐赠法学教授弗兰克·鲍曼说新闻周刊共和党对众议院弹劾调查的抱怨是“没有根据的”

鲍曼说，如果没有众议院全体成员的决议，这不是一个有效的弹劾调查，这是不真实的。他还说调查不是秘密进行的。

鲍曼告诉《新闻周刊》:“令人作呕的是，进行(目前)私下作证的委员会有40多名共和党成员，他们都有权出席并提问。”。“同样，所有这些委员会都有共和党工作人员，他们也有权出席并协助共和党成员提问。”

此外，鲍曼说，私人证据收集既不是固有的不公平，也不违背先例。像Koh一样，他把它比作大陪审团程序。

鲍曼说:“在大陪审团程序中，除了陪审员、证人、法庭记者和检察官，证人作证时没有人在场。”。

“简而言之，特朗普和共和党要求比面临长期监禁的被告获得更多的诉讼权利。在这里，总统的拥护者——这些委员会的几乎每一个共和党成员——都亲自参与了整个过程。”

众议院议长南希·佩洛西9月发起的弹劾调查的核心是指控特朗普滥用职权，在2020年选举中利用外国政府进行干预。

在7月25日的电话中，特朗普请求乌克兰总统沃洛迪米尔·泽兰斯基(Volodymyr Zelenksiy)帮忙。他希望泽兰斯基展开两项调查。

一个是针对前副总统乔·拜登(2020年民主党提名的主要候选人)和他的儿子亨特·拜登(乌克兰一家天然气公司的董事会成员)的虚假腐败指控。

另一个是被广泛揭穿的阴谋论，即民主党全国委员会与网络安全公司众目睽睽之下密谋陷害俄罗斯干涉选举，证据保存在乌克兰的一台服务器上。

还有证据表明，白宫利用对泽伦斯基进行访问的提议和扣留军事援助作为确保调查的杠杆，并由乌克兰总统公开宣布调查结果。

本周，美国驻乌克兰最高外交官比尔·泰勒，向国会作证他认为特朗普正在利用白宫会议和军事援助来确保调查的安全，这将在2020年的选举中对他个人有利。特朗普否认有任何不当行为。

在周四的新闻发布会上格雷厄姆说，众议院的调查是“越界的，不符合我们所知的正当程序，这是一个星室式的调查，与众议院过去弹劾其他总统的做法有很大的不同。”

格雷厄姆强调了与弹劾比尔·克林顿总统的不同之处，当时比尔·克林顿是国会议员，在参议院审判中担任经理。

密苏里大学的鲍曼告诉记者:“的确，在克林顿众议院弹劾调查中，总统也有权让他的律师在任何众议院支持的取证过程中在场。”新闻周刊。

“但关键是，众议院司法委员会实际上没有采取任何措施新建证据。

“整个诉讼程序基于肯·斯塔尔的报告——400页加上数千份证明文件——这是刑事调查程序的结果，包括大陪审团的广泛使用，而总统根本无权参与。”

鲍曼说，前总统理查德·尼克松弹劾调查期间，众议院司法委员会“收集的新证据相对较少”，并“制定了特别检察官的‘路线图’和随之而来的秘密大陪审团材料”

“加上参议院水门事件委员会的工作在众议院开始之前基本完成。甚至众议院在公开听证前也私下采访了证人，”鲍曼说。

“今天不同的是，因为我们没有检察官来调查乌克兰的事实，众议院必须做些什么自从弹劾安德鲁·约翰逊以来，它从未尝试过这样做—谁将是弹劾相关事实的主要调查者。

“要做到这一点，需要使用任何刑事调查人员都会使用的相同技术——包括将证人的最初陈述从公众视线中移除。”

2019年10月24日，DC华盛顿，参议院司法委员会主席林赛·格雷厄姆在美国国会大厦介绍一项谴责众议院弹劾唐纳德·特朗普总统调查的决议时，谈到了希拉里的弹劾。

LINDSEY GRAHAM'S TRUMP IMPEACHMENT RESOLUTION HAS 'ABSOLUTELY NO SUBSTANCE' AND IS A 'LEGALLY IGNORANT RED HERRING,' SAY CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLARS

Sen. Lindsey Graham's resolution to the Senate condemning the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump has "absolutely no substance," said a constitutional scholar, and is full of "phony objections."

The resolution brought by the South Carolina Republican is co-signed at the time of writing by 46 of his party colleagues in the Senate. It accuses House Democrats of a lack of due process and transparency in their impeachment inquiry.

Among the resolution's complaints are that the House has not voted to open the impeachment inquiry, that witnesses so far have given closed-door testimonies, and that Trump is being denied his rights to defend himself against the allegations emerging from the process.

Trump's White House is refusing to engage with the impeachment inquiry because it argues the president is denied due process. It is not complying with congressional subpoenas and has instructed administration officials and those associated with Trump to do the same.

"Senator Graham's resolution has absolutely no substance," Laurence Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and professor of constitutional law at Harvard, and a prominent critic of Trump, told Newsweek.

"I looked at it carefully to see if any of its process complaints made sense historically, legally, or morally. I could find nothing in it worthy of being taken seriously.

"And the fact that it focuses entirely on phony objections to a completely fair and traditional process speaks volumes about how little the Republican senators have to say in defense of what the president has done in shaking down a vulnerable ally for his own personal benefit."

Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale, told Newsweek that Graham's resolution is "a legally ignorant red herring."

"Even if this style of proceeding were not all authorized by the House rules the Republicans themselves adopted to run the Benghazi hearings, the due process protections Graham wants only attach at the Senate impeachment trial, not at the charging stage in the House, which more closely resembles a more private grand jury proceeding," Koh said.

"At the charging stage, private proceedings are warranted so that witnesses don't compare and align stories through public testimony (although the information that is emerging is remarkably consistent).

"And everyone knows that the information being gathered will be public in a matter of weeks anyway, when POTUS and his people will have ample opportunity to rebut."

Frank Bowman, Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor of Law at the University of Missouri, told Newsweek the Republican complaints about the House impeachment inquiry are "without merit."

Bowman said it is not true that it isn't a valid impeachment inquiry without a resolution by the full House. He also said it is not true that the inquiry is being conducted in secret.

"As has been reported ad nauseum, the committees conducting the (currently) private depositions have over 40 Republican members, all of whom are entitled to be present and to ask questions," Bowman told Newsweek. "Likewise, all these committees have Republican staffs, who are also entitled to be present and assist Republican members in asking questions."

Moreover, Bowman said private evidence gathering is neither inherently unfair or contrary to precedent. Like Koh, he compared it to a grand jury proceeding.

"In the grand jury process, no one is present during witness testimony other than the jurors, the witness, the court reporter and the prosecutor," Bowman said.

"In short, Trump and the Repubs are asking for more procedural rights than a defendant facing lengthy incarceration would get. Here, advocates for the president—virtually every Republican member of these committees—are personally involved in the entire process."

At the heart of the impeachment inquiry, launched in September by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is the accusation that Trump abused his office by soliciting the interference to his advantage of a foreign government in the 2020 election.

During a July 25 phone call, Trump asked a favor of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenksiy. He wanted Zelenskiy to open up two investigations.

One was into spurious corruption allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden—a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination—and his son Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

The other was into a widely-debunked conspiracy theory that the DNC conspired with the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to frame Russia for election meddling, and that the evidence is held on a server in Ukraine.

There is also evidence that the White House used the offer of a visit for Zelenskiy and the withholding of military aid as leverage to secure the investigations and a public announcement of them by the Ukrainian president.

This week, Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, testified to Congress that he believed Trump was using the White House meeting and military aid to secure the investigations, which were to benefit him personally at the 2020 election. Trump denies any wrongdoing.

At a news conference on Thursday, Graham said the House inquiry was "out of bounds, inconsistent with due process as we know it, it's a star-chamber type inquiry, and is a substantial deviation from what the House has done in the past regarding impeachment of other presidents."

Graham highlighted differences with the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in which he, then a congressman, was a manager during the Senate trial.

"It's true that in the Clinton House impeachment inquiry, the president also had the right to have his lawyers present during any House-sponsored taking of evidence," the University of Missouri's Bowman told Newsweek.

"But critically, the House Judiciary Committee didn't actually take any new evidence.

"The entire proceeding was based on Ken Starr's report—400 pages plus thousands of supporting documents—which was the result of a criminal investigative process, including extensive use of the grand jury, in which the president had no right of participation at all."

Bowman said that the House Judiciary Committee during former President Richard Nixon's impeachment inquiry "did relatively little gathering of new evidence" and "worked off the special prosecutor's 'road map' and the secret grand jury material provided with it."

"Plus the work of the Senate Watergate Committee essentially complete before the house ever started. And even the House did private interviews of witnesses before putting them on in a public hearing," Bowman said.

"What's different today is that, because we have no prosecutor available to work up the Ukraine facts, the House has to do something it has not attempted to do since the impeachment of Andrew Johnson—which is to be the primary investigator of facts relevant to impeachment.

"To do that requires using the same techniques any criminal investigator would use—which includes taking the initial statements of witnesses out of the public eye."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC), talks about the Clinton impeachment while introducing a resolution condemning the House Impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, at the U.S. Capitol on October 24, 2019 in Washington, DC.