COLOMBIA, SC – Donald Trump added two more former South Carolina federal prosecutors to his impeachment legal team, according to one of the lawyers.
“It’s confirmed,” Greg Harris, a lawyer from the capital Columbia, told the Associated Press on Thursday when asked if he and former US Attorney Johnny Gasser had been added to the team that will create a defense for second place without Trump’s precedent of impeachment trial, set for the week of February 8.
Harris is a former federal and municipal prosecutor with experience in white collar cases. He currently works in private practice with Gasser, who was also a prosecutor at the local and federal level, serving as a South Carolina attorney for more than a year. He went into private practice with Harris.
Both lawyers have experience in public corruption cases, both representing Republican state deputy Rick Quinn on charges of misconduct in office. Quinn finally resigned in a 2017 deal that resulted in the termination of charges of conspiracy and illegal lobbying against his father, Republican consultant Richard Quinn – who sometimes had former President Ronald Reagan and Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham among their customers.
The two also represented South Carolina lieutenant governor Ken Ard, who resigned in 2012 after pleading guilty to ethical violations.
Harris and Gasser join a team that includes Butch Bowers, a famous South Carolina electoral and ethics lawyer, called the team’s “anchor tenant” by US Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
It is partly on Graham’s advice that Trump is turning to the South Carolina team after other legal allies rejected the case. It is a remarkable departure from his 2020 impeachment trial, when Trump had a group of nationally known lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, Jay Sekulow and Kenneth Starr.
Bowers has years of experience representing elected officials and political candidates, including former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford. Bowers represented Sanford when state lawmakers considered impeaching the governor after revelations that Sanford had disappeared from the state, without leaving the chain of command for five days, to see his mistress in Argentina in 2009. The impeachment effort never left the committee.
Bowers also successfully mentored another former governor, Nikki Haley, through an investigation into whether she had violated the state ethics law.
Another Trump contractor, Deborah Barbier, spent more than a decade as a federal prosecutor and now, in private practice, specializes in white-collar defense. She also represented Richard Quinn in her case of illegal lobbying.
The House officially transmitted the impeachment article – accusing Trump of inciting the crowd that invaded the United States Capitol on January 6 – to the Senate on Monday. The trial could have officially started on Tuesday, but Republicans pushed to delay it to give Trump a chance to organize his legal team and prepare a defense.
If convicted, Trump could be prevented from taking public office again, putting an end to any hope of mounting another White House bid in 2024.
Want to read all the best news from WFAE every day? Sign up here to receive The Frequency, the daily email newsletter from WFAE, so that our top stories are delivered directly to your inbox.