Trump defense attorney David Schoen walks through the Senate reception room on Feb. 12, 2021, the fourth day of his impeachment trial in the Senate.
Another U.S. lawyer has been retaliated against for defending Trump in his impeachment trial. A law school canceled his classes and a legal group removed him from an email list of civil rights lawyers.
I had hoped to teach a civil rights class at a law school in the fall,” Trump defense attorney David Schoen told the Epoch Times. We’ve been talking about it and doing some planning. I wrote to them and said, I want you to know that I will be representing Donald Trump in the impeachment case. I don’t know if that will influence your decision. They said they appreciated my writing, (but) frankly, that (meaning defending Trump) would upset some students and the entire faculty, so I couldn’t teach.”
“It makes me sad because I really want to do more and more teaching. I love doing that.” Schoen said.
Schoen is an attorney in Alabama. He declined to say which law school canceled his classes or which legal group removed him from its e-mail list.
“They actually spent 48 hours discussing the matter with their board of trustees, et cetera. They decided that they needed to remove me from that list for the Time being.” Schoen said. “This is a very important list to me. It’s some very distinguished civil rights lawyers and wonderful people.”
On the first day of the Senate impeachment trial, Schoen delivered an impassioned speech on why the Senate has no authority to try a former president. He ended his speech by reciting “Building of the Ship,” an 1849 poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. At this point, he seemed to be holding back his tears. Schoen told The Epoch Times that he chose the poem, and the quote from President Abraham Lincoln that precedes it, because he believes the Lincoln era is most similar to the current divisions in the United States.
“I think we are in a very dangerous and divisive time. This election (referring to last year’s presidential election) itself shows that. I think all this rhetoric shows that as well.”
In preparing his arguments for the impeachment trial, Schoen also involved his children. These children were between the ages of 15 and 25. It was his daughter who suggested he adopt Longfellow’s poem.
I wanted,” Schoen said, “to share what I had to say with the children and get their feedback. They’ve been very helpful to me. One of my sons was at the impeachment trial with me.”
Schoen is not the only lawyer who has suffered retaliation for defending Trump.
Michael van der Veen, another defense attorney in the Trump impeachment case, said vandals broke the windows of his Home and painted graffiti on the outside of his residence. He had to move his children to an undisclosed location and hire armed guards to protect his home and workplace.
Schoen said the threats didn’t stop him from doing what he wanted to do.
“I’ve faced a lot of threats over the years for a variety of reasons. But if you let that stop you, I think you’re doing it wrong.” He said.
Schoen received the Pro Bono Publico Award from the American Bar Association (ABA) in 1995 for his civil rights work, and the ABA handbook (pdf) says he has made “significant contributions to school, prison, foster care, police department and election voting reform in the South. He has “contributed greatly” to reforms in schools, prisons, foster care, police stations and voting in elections in the South.
The Senate acquitted Trump of inciting a mob to storm the Capitol in an impeachment hearing. Schoen said he spoke with Trump after the impeachment verdict and that Trump was “very optimistic and very satisfied.
During the impeachment trial, Schoen spoke with Trump two or three times a day. He said Trump was always “very gracious”, “very supportive” and “very grateful for what I did”.
A few days after the Senate acquitted Trump, a House Democrat and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sued him over the storming of the Capitol, accusing him of masterminding the attack. Schoen said the lawsuit is a “political farce.
“I don’t think it has any merit. I think it’s an abuse of the statute that it’s based on. And I think it’s only going to lead to further division.” Schoen said.
Recent Comments