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WASHINGTON — The White House added Dallas-area congressman John Ratcliffe to President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team Monday night, tapping a former federal prosecutor who emerged as a aggressive defender during the House impeachment inquiry.
“I took an oath to defend the Constitution. This impeachment is an assault on due process. It’s an assault on the separation of powers. It’s unconstitutional. I’m grateful for the opportunity to make that clear to every American during the Senate trial,” Ratcliffe said in a statement.
Ratcliffe is one of eight House Republicans named as reinforcements for the defense team led by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow, joining retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, the former Baylor University president whose independent counsel inquiry led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
At his Oct. 17 rally in Dallas, Trump gave a generous shout-out to Ratcliffe, calling him “one of the best lawyers you’ll ever find. He’s slick, he’s smooth, but boy, he’s loyal, he’s, talented, and he’s got them all buffaloed because they’re not as good as him, John Ratliffe.”
Eleven days later, Ratcliffe joined the president at Game 5 of the World Series.
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The other GOP lawmakers tapped by Trump are Reps. Doug Collins, Mike Johnson, Jim Jordan, Debbie Lesko, Mark Meadows, Elise Stefanik and Lee Zeldin — a core of especially forceful Trump defenders during the intelligence and judiciary committee hearings.
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These lawmakers aren’t expected to present arguments on the Senate floor during the trial, which began Thursday with the swearing in of Chief Justice John Roberts and by the senators who will serve as jurors.
But after weeks of hearings they can help the president’s lawyers keep track of the myriad details from witnesses and evidence uncovered so far.
The trial begins in earnest Tuesday afternoon, starting with a likely partisan brawl over trial rules unveiled by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday evening.
“Throughout this process, these Members of Congress have provided guidance to the White House team, which was prohibited from participating in the proceedings concocted by Democrats in the House of Representatives,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grishman said in a written statement issued Monday night “The President looks forward to their continued participation and is confident that the Members will help expeditiously end this brazen political vendetta on behalf of the American people.”
Last summer, Trump picked Ratcliffe to serve as director of national intelligence. But the nomination fizzled within days amid questions from senators in both parties about whether the third-term Republican was ready for the assignment.
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi named a Texas Democrat, Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Houston, as one of the House managers to prosecute the two articles of impeachment during the trial.
Despite being a junior member of the House Intelligence Committee, GOP colleagues often yielded their time to Ratcliffe during the impeachment inquiry, and he proved to be less a bomb thrower than a studious and methodical prosecutor.
When Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador in Ukraine, testified, he prompted her to agree that Hunter Biden’s work for Ukrainian gas company Burisma gave the “appearance of a conflict of interest” given that his father, Joe Biden, was vice president.
He got Gordon Sondland, the top U.S. diplomat in Europe and a key witness for Democrats alleging abuse of power by Trump, to agree there was nothing “nefarious” in his own interactions with the president.
Ratcliffe has argued strenuously against impeachment, calling that a last-resort measure in cases far more clear and egregious.
“If two people on the call disagree honestly about whether or not there was a demand, and whether or not anything should be reported on a call, that is not a clear and compelling basis to undo 63 million votes and remove a president from office,” he said.
Ratcliffe, 54, served as mayor of Heath, a small town east of Dallas, and as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas under President George W. Bush.
He represents a district that runs from suburban Dallas to Texarkana in northeast corner of Texas, having unseated fellow Republican Ralph Hall in a primary runoff in 2014. Hall was 91 at the time, and the oldest serving House member in history. He died last March at age 95.
Ratcliffe is a graduate of Notre Dame and the Southern Methodist University law school.