Republican MP Matt Gaetz on Wednesday offered to represent former President Trump at his second impeachment trial, telling Fox News that he would be willing to step down from his House of Representatives seat if asked to join the team Trump’s legal system.
Gaetz, R-Florida, told Fox News on Wednesday that he was not invited to join the former president’s defense, but offered to do so.
TRUMP ANNOUNCES NEW LEGAL TEAM FOR IMPEACHMENT ASSESSMENT
“I’m just sorry to have just one political career to give my president,” Gaetz told Fox News.
Gaetz told Fox News that he offered to represent Trump through Representative Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows “weeks ago”.
“When ethics warned that members of the Chamber could not do that, the talks ceased,” explained Gaetz.
Gaetz, however, told Fox News that if Trump asked him to join his defense, he would accept.
When asked whether he would resign from the Chamber to do so, Gaetz told Fox News: “If the law requires it, yes.”
Gaetz first presented the idea on the podcast, War Room Pandemic, saying, “I would leave my chair at the House, I would leave my home.”
“I see this cancellation of the Trump presidency and the Trump movement as one of the biggest threats,” Gaetz said on the podcast. “I’m here to win, to win so much that I get tired because that’s what was promised.” Gaetz’s comments came after the former president announced a new legal defense team, after separating from five of his impeachment lawyers just one week before his Senate trial began.
South Carolina lawyers Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier and former federal prosecutors Greg Harris, Johnny Gasser and Josh Howard left the defense team on Saturday, a source said, considering the mutual decision.
GAETZ SLAMS CHENEY AT WYOMING AMID SPECULATION ON PRIMARY CHALLENGES
The source said the lawyers left a difference of opinion on the direction of the defense’s argument.
Another anonymous source told the Associated Press that Bowers and Barbier left because Trump wanted them to make allegations of electoral fraud during the trial.
Trump will now be represented by attorneys David Schoen and Bruce L. Castor, Jr.
The changes come shortly before the former president faces charges of inciting the US Capitol insurrection on January 6, leaving the exact members of his defense team and their approach in the air at a crucial time.
Trump was almost certain to be acquitted, however, because 45 of the 50 Republicans in the Senate voted earlier this month to reject the trial on a point of order presented by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
The remaining five Republicans voted with Democrats to end the debate on Paul’s motion, which argued that Trump’s impeachment trial is unconstitutional because he is no longer in office.