Trump and Melania leave the White House on Jan. 20, 2021.
Several lawyers left former President Trump’s impeachment defense team, multiple anonymous sources familiar with the situation told the media Saturday night (Jan. 30).
Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, two South Carolina lawyers, are no longer part of the Trump defense team, The Hill and other media outlets reported. One of the two, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their departure was a “neutral decision” by both sides, and that they were mainly motivated by the different directions they wanted to take in their defense. Trump is expected to announce the new defense members in a day or two.
According to the source, Bowers and Barbier left because Trump wanted them to defend from the direction of the allegations of election fraud, while the lawyers wanted to do it from a different angle. This source said he did not have the right to speak publicly and only wanted to speak on condition of anonymity.
Previously, Bowles had issued public statements saying he was not concerned about the direction of media opinion on the case, but was prepared to perform his duties as a lawyer. Bowles, who previously led Trump’s impeachment defense team and is a veteran political defense attorney for public officials, was introduced to Trump’s team by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
Another source told Reuters that three other attorneys, North Carolina’s Josh Howard, South Carolina’s Johnny Gasser and Greg Harris, have also left the team.
Trump is still struggling to find a lawyer to defend him against impeachment and conviction charges on Feb. 8. Trump has been accused by Democrats of inciting his supporters to storm Congress, but the practice has been denied by most Republican senators. Republicans and members of Trump’s team said in a statement that they are prepared to make a simple defense at the trial: that Trump’s trial is unconstitutional because he is no longer president in office.
The number of Republican senators who opposed Trump’s impeachment reached 45 in early voting in late January, suggesting that Democrats may have difficulty gaining the support of 17 Republicans in the impeachment trial, which begins Feb. 8, and that the impeachment will probably fail.
On Saturday, January 30, The Hill noted that after a large number of senators announced their opposition to the impeachment proposal, a White House source familiar with the matter said that President Joe Biden recently sent a very clear message to Senate Democratic leaders that the impeachment should be kept short and not derail the president’s agenda as a result.
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