Mr. Giuliani repeatedly told associates that he would be involved in defending impeachment, despite his status as a potential witness, as he addressed the crowd at the Trump rally on January 6. .
But Trump’s advisers struggled to find a legal team to defend him.
Finally, with the help of an ally, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Trump’s advisers announced that he has hired Butch Bowers, a well-known lawyer with experience in representing South Carolina politicians facing crises.
But just over a week before the trial started, Mr. Bowers and the four lawyers connected with him left abruptly, although another lawyer, David I. Schoen, who was expected to be part of the team from the beginning, remained on board .
In another reminder of his ad hoc approach, Trump asked associates on Thursday night if it was too late to add or remove lawyers from the team.
A few hours before Trump’s team appeared in the Senate, the group was still discussing the order of appearance of its two main lawyers, Mr. Schoen and Bruce L. Castor Jr. In the end, they decided that a third lawyer, Mr. van der Veen, would do the opening act.
The uncertainty apparently stemmed from Castor’s widely criticized appearance on Tuesday, when he made a bewildering and unfocused opening statement that infuriated his client. Trump told advisers and friends that he no longer wanted to hear about Castor, said people familiar with the Trump team’s discussions.
People familiar with the composition of the legal team said that Eric Herschmann, a lawyer and ally of the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who worked in the West Wing during the last year of the government, was a key figure in the placement together.