President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would love to attend the impeachment hearings in the Senate, but acknowledged his lawyers might disagree with the idea.
“I’d love to go, wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t that be beautiful? I don’t know, I’d sort of love … sit right in the front row and stare in their corrupt faces,” Trump said. “I’d love to do it.”
The president spoke to reporters in Davos, Switzerland, at a press conference, after being asked if he would be open to attending the hearings.
He acknowledged his lawyers Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow might have a problem with the idea.
“Don’t keep talking because you may convince me to do it,” he said to reporters.
Trump said he had the opportunity to watch some of the impeachment proceedings in between his meetings with world leaders in Davos.
The president praised Cipollone for his delivery on the Senate floor in the late hours of the night.
“I was very impressed with Pat, he had great emotion yesterday. Pat’s a brilliant guy, but I’ve never seen that emotion, and that’s real emotion that’s because he knows that this is a hoax,” he said.
He specifically ridiculed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler for their testimony.
“I watch the lies from Adam Schiff, he’ll stand, he’ll look at a microphone and he’ll talk like he’s so aggrieved, these two guys, these are major sleaze bags,” he said.
Trump said he would “love” to have administration officials like Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, and former Energy Secretary Rick Perry testify at the trial, but raised concerns about national security and executive privilege.
“I don’t know if we left on the best of terms, I would say probably not, so you don’t like people testifying when they didn’t leave on good terms and that was due to me, not to him,” Trump said.
Trump dismissed the idea that businessman Lev Parnas had anything important to say for the trial, after he was arrested for campaign finance violations.
“He’s a con man, I don’t know him, he’s sort of like a groupie, he shows up at fundraisers,” Trump said.
The president also explained why he hired Kenneth Star to his legal team, despite describing him as a “disaster” during the Clinton impeachment hearing.
“Ken Starr is a terrific man, I did make that statement because frankly I didn’t think that Bill Clinton should have been impeached,” he said. “I thought it was terrible.”
Trump said he did not know Starr but said he believed that he was a tough and talented lawyer. He said his previous comments criticizing Starr was when he was “sticking up for” Bill Clinton, who he repeated should not have been impeached.
“I sort of still feel that way, I mean what he did was nothing good, there was a lot of lying going on, there were a lot of bad things,” he said.
The president also said he did not see a reason to postpone his State of the Union address, scheduled for February 4.
“I don’t see it,” he said.
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