(Headline USA) Former president Donald Trump announced a new impeachment legal defense team Sunday, one day after it was revealed that he had parted ways with an earlier set of attorneys with just over a week to go before his Senate trial.
The two representing Trump will be defense lawyer David Schoen, a frequent television legal commentator, and Bruce Castor, a former district attorney in Pennsylvania who has faced criticism for his decision to not charge actor Bill Cosby in a sex crimes case.
Both attorneys issued statements through Trump’s office saying that they were honored to take the job.
“The strength of our Constitution is about to be tested like never before in our history. It is strong and resilient. A document written for the ages, and it will triumph over partisanship yet again, and always,” said Castor, who served as district attorney for Montgomery County, outside of Philadelphia, from 2000 to 2008.
Trump’s team had initially announced that Butch Bowers, a South Carolina lawyer, would lead his legal team after an introduction from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. But that team unraveled over the weekend due to differences over legal strategy.
One anonymous person who claimed familiarity with their thinking said Bowers and another South Carolina lawyer, Deborah Barbier, left the team because Trump wanted them to use a defense that relied on allegations of election fraud, and the lawyers were not willing to do so.
Republicans and aides to Trump have made clear that they intend to make a simple argument in the trial: Trump’s trial, scheduled for the week of Feb. 8, is unconstitutional because he is no longer in office.
“The Democrats’ efforts to impeach a president who has already left office is totally unconstitutional and so bad for our country,” Trump adviser Jason Miller has said.
Partisan legal scholars, however, say there is no bar to an impeachment trial despite Trump having left the White House.
One argument is that state constitutions that predate the U.S. Constitution allowed impeachment after officials left office. The Constitution’s drafters also did not specifically bar the practice, but the procedure explicitly states that impeachment and conviction leads to “removal.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.
