As the former president’s impeachment trial nears, Donald Trump has been assembling his impeachment legal defense team.
The two newest members will be defense lawyer David Schoen, a high-profile legal commentator, and Bruce Castor, a former Pennsylvania district attorney who came under fire for deciding not to charge actor/comedian Bill Cosby in a sex crimes case. Castor has said he didn’t think the evidence against Cosby was strong enough to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Schoen was in talks to join Jeffrey Epstein's defense days before the financier killed himself.
The former president has had a challenging time retaining attorneys to represent him against charges that he incited the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. The announcement of Schoen and Castor comes one day after it was revealed he’d parted ways with an earlier set of attorneys over legal strategy differences.
Castor, who was district attorney for Montgomery County from 2000 to 2008, said “The strength of our Constitution is about to be tested like never before in our history...A document written for the ages, and it will triumph over partisanship yet again, and always.”
According to republicans and Trump aides, the trial, set to begin the week of February 8th, will present a simple defense: that the trial itself is unconstitutional since he’s no longer in office. Trump adviser Jason Miller said, “The Democrats’ efforts to impeach a president who has already left office is totally unconstitutional and so bad for our country.”
Several legal scholars disagree arguing that state constitutions written before the U.S. Constitution allow impeachment after officials leave office.