President Donald Trump added two big name attorneys to his legal counsel for next week’s Senate impeachment trial hearings.
Former prosecutor Kenneth Starr and former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz have joined a team of eight attorneys that will defend the president against bogus impeachment charges.
With Starr and Dershowitz, Trump adds two people who have experience from America’s last impeachment trial. Starr acted as the lead investigator into the successful impeachment investigation into President Bill Clinton; and Dershowitz consulted Clinton throughout his impeachment trial.
Trump’s lead counsel for the Senate hearings will be White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his personal lawyer Jay Sekulow.
“President Trump has done nothing wrong and is confident that this team will defend him, the voters, and our democracy from this baseless, illegitimate impeachment. The Articles of Impeachment House Democrats have adopted threaten grave and lasting damage to our institutions and to our Nation,” Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement Friday.
“The President looks forward to the end of this partisan and unconstitutional impeachment,” Grisham added.“ It’s time for Congress to turn its attention back to the work of the American people and leave sham political investigations like this one in the past.”
Removal from office requires a two-thirds majority of senators to vote to convict the president. However, the conventional wisdom is that such an outcome is unlikely so long as Republicans hold a majority in the Senate.
Starr and Dershowitz have both had distinguished legal careers. Alan Dershowitz became famous as a member of the legal dream team that defended OJ Simpson in 1994. Starr became a household name for his role in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. More recently, they have each appeared frequently on cable TV to criticize the way Democrats have handled this impeachment process.
Last November, Starr on Fox News said that the witnesses the House Democrats’ used during their impeachment hearing did not show impeachable offenses.
“My assessment of the evidence [thus] far? Nowhere close. The evidence is conflicting and ambiguous,” he told the network’s Bill Hemmer in November.
Dershowitz, a lifelong Democrat, has nonetheless supported the president throughout both impeachment and the Russia probe. In 2018, the veteran lawyer wrote a book called The Case Against Impeaching Trump.
On Friday after the White House announced Trump’s impeachment legal team, Dershowitz downplayed what his role would be like during the Senate hearings. The former Harvard law professor said that he will not be a full-fledged member of the president’s legal team, but rather he will just be providing an hour long constitutional defense during Tuesday’s oral arguments.
“I was asked to present my constitutional argument against impeachment,” Dershowitz told Mediate. “I will be there for one hour, basically, presenting my argument. But I’m not a full-fledged member of the defense team in any realistic sense of that term.”
Dershowitz also made an official statement on Twitter regarding his role on Trump’s impeachment counsel.
STATEMENT REGARDING PROFESSOR DERSHOWITZ’S ROLE IN THE SENATE TRIAL – Professor Dershowitz will present oral arguments at the Senate trial to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal. (1of 2)
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) January 17, 2020
(2 of 3) While Professor Dershowitz is non partisan when it comes to the constitution—he opposed the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and voted for Hillary Clinton— he believes the issues at stake go to the heart of our enduring Constitution.
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) January 17, 2020
(3of 3) He is participating in this impeachment trial to defend the integrity of the Constitution and to prevent the creation of a dangerous constitutional precedent.
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) January 17, 2020
It is unclear what Starr’s role on Trump’s legal team will be. After the announcement, the former prosecutor stepped down as a Fox News contributor.
Two prominent people involved in the last impeachment process reacted on reacted to the news of Starr and Dershowitz being involved in the Senate impeachment process on Twitter.
Newt Gingrich, who was Speaker of the House during Clinton’s impeachment, liked the addition of these two lawyers.
“Lets see: Speaker Pelosi sends in Schiff and Nadler and President Trump sends in Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr,” Gingrich tweeted. “That should tell you everything you need to know about the quality of the two cases.”
Lets see: Speaker Pelosi sends in Schiff and Nadler and President Trump sends in Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr. That should tell you everything you need to know about the quality of the two cases.
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) January 17, 2020
On the other hand Monica Lewinsky, who was at the center of the last impeachment hearing, said on Twitter this was “definitely an ‘are you f*cking kidding me?’ kinda day.”
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of Star News Digital Media. If you have any tips, email Zachery at [email protected].
Photo “Kenneth Starr” by CNN. Photo “Alan Dershowitz” by MSNBC.
