WASHINGTON (AP) – Former President Donald Trump thought his attorneys’ actions on the opening day of his second impeachment trial were a disaster as allies and Republican senators questioned the strategy and some called for a fresh uproar for his legal team.
Trump, who watched the proceedings in Washington from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, was outraged at what he saw, according to a person familiar with his thinking. Senators also criticized what they described as being unfocused and unsettled when Trump’s team and Democratic House executives began to take their cases before the Senate jury.
While it remains unlikely that more than a handful of Republicans will join Democrats to condemn the former president at the end of the trial, the proceedings were an opportunity for Trump to try to repair some of the damage to his legacy that suffered during the storming of the Capitol by a mob of his supporters. Trump has been accused of instigating the January 6 uprising, and last month he became the first president in history to be impeached twice by the House.
But Trump’s team – which was announced just over a week ago – seemed unprepared when they tried a good cop, a bad police routine that turned from flattery to legal language, and was in stark contrast to the Democrats’ targeted emotional calls.
Trump – once the showman – was in awe of the Democrats, who opened Tuesday’s session with powerful video that collected scenes from the deadly attack on Congress. And he complained that his team – especially Lead Attorney Bruce Castor – got off poorly on television and looked weak by comparison, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The anger was echoed by Trump allies, who punished the lawyers both publicly and privately and with repeated blasphemy.
‘There is no argument. I have no idea what he’s doing. I have no idea why he says what he says, ”said Alan Dershowitz, a lawyer who represented Trump in his initial impeachment trial, weighing Castor in a performance at Newsmax while the session was in progress.
Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser, had already urged the former president to drop his legal team and hire Republican Representative Matt Gaetz before the trial began, warning, “You have to get those guys out of the way. . These people don’t understand. This is a political process. “
Republican members of the Senate seemed equally baffled, especially at Castor, who spent much of his time complementing senators with compliments, praising the Democrats’ cause and common ground.
GOP Senator John Cornyn of Texas said Castor “walked on and on and didn’t really get into the constitutional argument. He said Trump attorney David Schoen, who spoke second, “got there” and “was doing an effective job. But I’ve seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of arguments and that wasn’t one of the best I’ve seen.”
Before criticism grew, another Trump adviser described Castor’s presentation as part of a “very clear, deliberate strategy.” The adviser said that after the emotionally charged opening of the Democrats, Castor had started “lowering the temperature” before “dropping the hammer on the unconstitutional nature of this accusation witch-hunt.”
The hammer didn’t seem to hit his nail.
Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted with the Democrats on Tuesday to continue the process, said Trump’s team had done “ a terrible job ” and was “ disorganized, ” “ arbitrary, ” and “ doing everything they could, except to talk about the question at hand. “
GOP Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who also voted with the Democrats, said she was “perplexed” by Castor, “who didn’t seem to be making any arguments at all, which was an unusual approach.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, one of Trump’s closest allies, said he did not think the lawyers had done “the most effective work,” while South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, another close associate of Trump, said he did not know where Castor was. went along with his arguments.
Trump’s team did not respond to requests for comment on the day’s events or questions about whether they shook up the legal team.
Asked for a response to the GOP’s criticism as he left the trial, Castor – who had said during the trial that the team had “changed what we were going to do” at the last minute because the House managers had done a good job – – would just say “we had a good day.” Schoen told reporters that he had not spoken to the president yet, but should “do better next time.”
“I mean, I always hope to improve. I hope I can do that, ”he said.
Trump broke up with his original impeachment team just over a week before the Senate trial was due, in part because Trump wanted them to use a defense based on baseless allegations of election fraud, and the lawyers were unwilling to do so.
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Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.