Trump impeachment team fights against explosive Bolton revelations amid fears of Republican senators betraying president

Analysis: President's legal team argues Mr Trump did nothing wrong while also saying likely wrongs are not impeachable

For Republican senators jolted by a former White House official's shocking revelations about military aid to Ukraine and Donald Trump who are looking for a reason to acquit the president, his made-for-television legal team has them covered.

A half dozen GOP senators responding to former national security adviser John Bolton's bombshell revelations about what Mr Trump said about a military aid package for Ukraine and investigations of US Democrats, there is no evidence any one is mulling a vote to remove the president.

Several are facing tough re-election races. A few want to make sure the Senate is fulfilling its traditional role as a check on the presidency.

No matter their concerns and motivations, Mr Trump's lawyers are offering them an a la carte menu from which they - eventually - will be able to pick their own reason for beating back Democrats' attempts to follow the House's party line impeachment with the removal of the 45th president.

Alan Dershowtiz, a celebrity Harvard University professor whom Mr Trump recruited after watching his cable news appearances, essentially rolled an acquittal dessert cart onto the Senate floor Monday night.

At one point, he told senators of Mr Trump's actions towards Ukraine's new president that nothing the US commander in chief did "would by itself constitute an abuse of power."

But Mr Dershowitz, who has flip-flopped from an impeachment advocate to a staunch opponent, wasn't finished. "A quid pro quo alone is not the basis for an abuse of power," he said near the end of the defence team's second day of case-making.

Translation: Mr Trump might have linked a $391m military aid package for Ukraine to investigations of the Bidens and other Democrats, but doing so is within the legal authorities of the office to which the American people voted him.

Jay Sekulow, another of the president's lawyers, also served up a he-did-nothing-wrong dish earlier on Monday. "Asking a foreign leader to get to the bottom of issues of corruption is not a violation of an oath [of office]," he said. "The president was at all times acting under his constitutional authority, under his legal authority, in our national interest, and according to his oath of office."

What the entire Ukraine and impeachment affair is "really about" is not any potential wrongdoing by Mr Trump, but "deep policy differences" between Republicans and Democrats, Mr Sekulow said. "But we live in a constitutional republic where you have deep policy concerns and deep differences - that should not be the basis of an impeachment."

Mr Sekulow also took umbrage with House Democrats' contention and gripes that Mr Trump largely ignored US intelligence agencies over 2016 election meddling and instead listened to "people he trusted." (That includes former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, another personal Trump attorney whom he made the point person for all things Ukraine.) In short, the president did not "blindly trust" his intel services - but his lawyers argued it is not wrong for any chief executive to trust outside counsel.

On the other hand, Mr Trump's legal team also offered GOP senators another rationale for voting to acquit a Republican president who remains exceedingly popular among their shared political voting base.

Monday's prime example of this rationale also came from Mr Dershowitz, who waited until around 8.30pm to be the first Trump lawyer to bring up the revelations in a Sunday New York Times article that Mr Bolton's coming book will report he heard Mr Trump directly link Ukraine aid to investigations of his domestic political enemies.

"If a president, any president, were to have done what the Times reported about the content of the Bolton manuscript, that would not constitute an impeachable offence," Mr Dershowtiz said in a comment that lit up Twitter.

"Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level and abuse of power or an impeachable offence," he said in a remarkably candid moment. "That is clear from the history, that is clear from the language of the Constitution."

If that were not a seeming acknowledgement that his client might have exceeded the traditional and legal bounds of his office, Mr Dershowitz went even further when he said "alleged political sins" do not amount to "constitutionally impeachable offences."

That's a far cry from Mr Trump's declaration of innocence earlier in the day when asked to comment on Mr Bolton's allegations by a reporter in the Oval Office. "False," the president replied. A reporter sought more, asking simply, "False?" Mr Trump doubled down on his denial, saying: "Totally false."

False or not, it doesn't have to matter much for Senate Republicans. Voting to allow a couple witnesses to assuage voters back home is one thing - voting to make a popular-among-GOP voters president the first to be formally ousted from his office likely is political suicide. And Sen. Joni Ernst reminded everyone that, in the words of Mr Dershowitz, impeachment is a political weapon. That's true for a president's defence team, who can use their allotted time to attack one of their client's chief Democratic rivals.

"Iowa caucuses, folks. Iowa caucuses are this next Monday evening," Ernst told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday evening. "And I'm really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Democratic caucus-goers. Will they be supporting [former] Vice President [Joe] Biden at this point? Not certain about that."

So, backed by the defence team's a la carte menu, acquittal still looms ahead. That means the Senate's impeachment trial essentially has become just another 2020 campaign stop.

"Iowa caucus-goers take note," Mr Biden tweeted Monday night. "Joni Ernst just spilled the beans. She and Donald Trump are scared to death I'll be the nominee. On Feb. 3rd, let's make their day."