Donald Trump is no longer president, but he’s still got business in Washington in February. Namely, a trial in the Senate for his second impeachment. And according to reports, that trial may have gotten much more complicated just days before it’s set to begin.
According to ABC News, the top five lawyers that were set to represent Trump at the trial in early February have abruptly quit. The impeachment, which is over a single article where Trump was accused of “incitement of insurrection,” was mounting a defense of Trump despite
The team, led by South Carolina lawyer Butch Bowers, resigned in part because of disagreements over how to mount Trump’s defense, the sources said. The lawyers had planned to argue the constitutionality of holding a trial given Trump is now a former president.
The disagreements over strategy varied, sources told ABC News, but Trump wanted his team to argue there was election fraud, while the lawyers and some top advisers to the former president wanted the focus to remain on the constitutionality of a trial with the president no longer in office.
The trial was already delayed, in part due to Trump struggling to assemble a team to defend him. Rudy Giuliani, who once said he would head the legal team, later said he’d likely be a witness because he spoke at the same rally where Trump told his supporters to march to the US Capitol to fight for him, a fight that left five people dead. ABC also reported that more additions to the team are likely, and it is “nowhere near finalized” exactly who will defend Trump when the trial starts.