Former President Donald Trump (Trump) on Sunday (Jan. 31) named two lead attorneys who will lead the legal defense team against Trump’s impeachment trial. Trump is pictured leaving the White House for the Army/Navy soccer game at West Point, New York, on Dec. 12, 2020.
Former President Donald Trump (R-Texas) named two lead attorneys Sunday (Jan. 31) who will lead the legal defense team for the impeachment trial against Trump.
The two lead attorneys representing former President Trump in the upcoming Senate trial are attorney David Schoen of Alabama and former Pennsylvania prosecutor Bruce Castor Jr.
On Sunday, Trump’s office issued a statement saying that Schoen and Castor will now lead the team and that Schoen has worked with Trump and his advisers to prepare together for the upcoming trial.
The statement said that both Scone and Kuster agree that impeachment is unconstitutional and that 45 Republican senators have voted to agree that it is unconstitutional.
“It is an honor to represent the 45th President, Donald J. Trump, and the Constitution of the United States, Scone said.
Custer said the upcoming trial will test “the strength of the Constitution. I am honored to represent the 45th president,” he said in a statement. The strength of our Constitution is about to be tested like never before. It (the Constitution) is strong and resilient, a document that has been written and completed for years, and it will again and forever prevail over partisan (forces).
Scone has experience handling voting rights cases, and Custer, a former district attorney in Montgomery County, Pa.
The day before, the media reported, citing anonymous sources, that a group of South Carolina lawyers were no longer participating in the impeachment defense.
Butch Bowers, a South Carolina attorney previously appointed to lead the president’s legal team, parted ways because of disagreements over the direction of the defense arguments, the report said. Other lawyers on the president’s legal team who left include South Carolina attorney Deborah Barbier and former federal prosecutors Greg Harris and Johnny Gasser, as well as North Carolina attorney Josh Howard.
Trump’s adviser Jason Miller confirmed the news of the president’s legal team reshuffle Saturday night, saying at the Time that he had not yet made “a final decision on our legal team.
Trump’s new team of lawyers has about a week to develop a direction for his defense. Public arguments in the impeachment trial are scheduled to begin the week of Feb. 8.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, said he would not join the impeachment legal team because he had spoken at a Jan. 6 rally.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) filed a “motion to impeach the former president for violating constitutional procedures” on the afternoon of Jan. 26, calling for a vote on the constitutionality of an impeachment trial now that Trump has left office.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, called for a vote to “table” Paul’s motion, which ultimately passed the full House by a vote of 55 to 45.
Paul’s procedural motion was opposed by Democrats en masse, with five other Republicans falling in line, but 45 Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), voted against it.
The move shows that the Democrats have no way to get at least 17 votes from within the Republican Party to support a conviction, and the Senate is unlikely to convict former President Trump with more than two-thirds (67 votes) of the votes in the impeachment case in February.
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