Pat Cipollone, White House counsel, attending an event in the East Room of The White House with President Donald Trump. Pat Cipollone, White House counsel, attending an event in the East Room of The White House with President Donald Trump commemorating a record of judicial confirmations by the Republican controlled Senate, on Nov. 6, 2019. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone indicated Friday that President Donald Trump will rely on a Senate trial to defend himself, rather than participating in the U.S. House's impeachment inquiry.

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, Cipollone wrote that the inquiry "is completely baseless and has violated basic principles of due process and fundamental fairness."

"Whatever course you choose, as the president has recently stated: 'if you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate, and so that our country can get back to business,'" Cipollone wrote.

Cipollone did not directly say the president will not participate in the impeachment inquiry in the House, which Nadler had asked the White House to do by 5 p.m. Friday.

The top White House attorney urged Nadler to "end this inquiry now and not waste even more time with additional hearings."

And Cipollone said that if House Democrats adopted articles of impeachment it "would be a reckless abuse of power," and "would constitute the most unjust, highly partisan, and unconstitutional attempt at impeachment in our nation's history."

Cipollone said in a previous letter to Nadler that the White House would not participate in the House Judiciary Committee's first impeachment hearing, held earlier this week, but did not rule out getting involved in future proceedings.

If Trump were to participate in the impeachment hearings, he and his lawyers would be able to call witnesses or present evidence on the president's behalf.

Friday's letter indicates the president will instead use the Senate trial to defend his conduct in relation to Ukraine. The House Intelligence Committee released a report Monday claiming Trump abused his office by withholding military aid from Ukraine as the president pushed for investigations into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

Cipollone and other White House officials have been in regular contact with Senate Republicans about what an impeachment trial could look like. And with a GOP majority in the Senate, Trump has more allies there than the Democratic-controlled House.

Cipollone faced widespread and bipartisan criticism for his legal reasoning behind the White House's past refusal to participate in the impeachment inquiry.

The House Intelligence Committee's impeachment report blasted the White House counsel's legal theories as promoting "remarkably politicized arguments and legal theories unsupported by the Constitution, judicial precedent, and more than 200 years of history."

"If allowed to stand, the president's defiance, as justified by Mr. Cipollone, would represent an existential threat to the nation's Constitutional system of checks and balances, separation of powers, and rule of law," the report reads.

Read the letter:

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