Former U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that he had chosen two lawyers to head his defense team days before his historic second impeachment trial, as Republicans prepared for a battle over his party’s future.
Trump’s Senate trial is due to start on February 9, but he reportedly separated from several members of his initial legal team just a day ago.
Its principal lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce L. Castor, Jr, are “highly respected judicial lawyers” with experience in criminal law and defense, according to a statement from Trump.
Schoen represented Trump’s ally Roger Stone and said he was in discussions to join Jeffrey Epstein’s legal team in 2019 days before the disgraced U.S. financier committed suicide in prison on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex.
Castor previously served as district attorney for Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where he refused to pursue a case when American comedian Bill Cosby was accused of sexual assault by Andrea Constand.
The case progressed under Castor’s successor and Cosby was convicted in 2018.
Schoen was already working with the defense team, and both he and Castor “agree that this impeachment is unconstitutional,” said the Trump statement.
The former president’s trial for allegedly “inciting insurrection” over his supporters’ takeover of the Capitol exposed a split between Trump loyalists who dominate the Republican Party and its moderate wing.
“The Senate trial … will call on all Republicans to take a clearer stance,” Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson told ABC’s “This Week” program.
He added: “We need to be considerate of those people who supported Donald Trump … But at the same time, we don’t want to cover up the terrible actions that took place on Capitol Hill.”
Trump seems increasingly likely to avoid condemnation due to the party’s support in the Senate – where everyone except five Republicans has already supported an attempt to dismiss the case on constitutional grounds.
But the trial will certainly still see battle lines drawn over who controls the party after Trump’s first term defeat.
On January 6, Trump delivered a fiery speech in front of the White House urging his supporters to march on the United States Capitol to overturn the election results.
– Is it still Trump’s party? –
The protesters then violently stormed the Capitol building in scenes that shocked the world.
“The president’s comments that day were partly responsible for what happened, for the horrible violence,” Republican Senator Rob Portman told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “What he did was wrong and unforgivable.
“I am a juror. I will keep an open mind while we review this (trial). But I think this constitutionality issue must be resolved. We would be condemning an ordinary citizen, someone who is out of office. This sets a precedent.”
Adam Kinzinger, one of ten Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted for impeachment earlier this month, said on Sunday that Trump was “desperate to continue to appear to be leading the party”.
“We need to stop being the party that defends even an iota an uprising, a dead policeman and other Americans killed on Capitol Hill,” Kinzinger told NBC’s “Meet the Press”.
Kinzinger launched a new political action committee seeking to raise funds to challenge the party’s Trump wing.
While signaling opposition to Trump’s trial, Republican senators are fueling efforts to censor him for his role in attacking the Capitol.
But while a conviction would lead to a simple majority vote on whether to prevent Trump from taking a future public office, a censorship resolution does not bring that trigger.
Republican divisions have been further exposed in recent days by the newly elected lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, who promoted the unbalanced conspiracy theories driven by the far-right movement QAnon and supported Trump’s false allegations of electoral fraud.
Party leaders are under pressure to take action against the legislature, whose previous online publications indicated support for the execution of Democrats and claimed that school shootings were staged to undermine support for gun rights.
But Taylor Greene remained defiant, tweeting on Saturday that she had a “GREAT connection” with Trump while introducing herself as a new champion in the party’s Trumpist wing.
drill to / jm