By ERIC TUCKER and JILL COLVIN Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump named two attorneys for his impeachment defense team on Sunday, a day after it was revealed the former president had parted ways with a previous line of lawyers.
The two attorneys representing him are David Schoen, a criminal defense attorney with offices in Alabama and New York, and Bruce Castor, a former Pennsylvania prosecutor. Both made statements through a Trump adviser saying they were honored to take the job.
“The strength of our constitution is being tested like never before in our history. It’s strong and resilient. A document that has been written for all ages, and it will overcome partyhood once and for all, ”said Castor, who served as district attorney for Montgomery County, outside of Philadelphia, from 2000 to 2008.
Trump’s team revealed Saturday that several South Carolina attorneys who would represent him at the trial that would begin next week were no longer participating.
Trump, the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice, will stand trial in the Senate on charges that he incited his supporters to storm Congress on Jan. 6 when lawmakers gathered to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
Republicans and Trump aides have made it clear that they intend to make a simple argument in the trial: Trump’s trial is unconstitutional because he is no longer in office. Legal scientists say there is no impediment to impeachment, despite Trump leaving the White House.
“The Democrats’ efforts to overthrow a president who has already left are completely unconstitutional and so bad for our country,” Trump adviser Jason Miller said.
Castor is as well known in Pennsylvania for a case he has not filed as for the charges he has filed. He declined to charge actor Bill Cosby after a woman went to police in a Philadelphia suburb in 2005 to say that Cosby had drugged and abused her a year earlier.
A new prosecutor arrested Cosby in 2015 after documents from her 2005 civil lawsuit against Cosby were unsealed, revealing Cosby’s damaging testimony about sexual encounters with the woman, Andrea Constand and others.