WASHINGTON (AP) – Democrats are using Donald Trump’s upcoming Senate impeachment trial as a political “weapon” to prevent the former president from taking office again and are pursuing an “undemocratic” and unconstitutional case, a of his lawyers night.
Trump faces trial next week on charges of inciting a crushing and deadly siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when a crowd loyal to the city for a rally in support of the president went attacked the police and stormed the building. The House approved a single indictment against Trump a week before he left office. A trial would allow Democrats to present evidence against Trump and hold him publicly responsible for the attack.
However, whether a trial in the Senate is constitutional is a point of controversy because Trump is no longer in office and, if convicted, cannot be removed from a position he does not hold. Democrats point to the dismissal of a 1876 secretary of war who had already resigned and the views of many law scholars. The Senate could vote to prevent Trump from holding federal office if convicted, which is a goal the Democrats support.
On the eve of the legal reports scheduled by lawyers on both sides, Trump’s attorney David Schoen’s appearance on Fox News predicted some of the arguments he plans to present at trial, considering the case unnecessarily divisive. as well as unconstitutional and undemocratic.
“It’s also the most inadvisable legislative action I’ve seen in my life,” Schoen said.
Trump is the first president in American history to be indicted twice. Last year he was acquitted in a Senate trial for his contacts with his Ukrainian counterpart. Dismissal, Schoen said, “is the weapon they have tried to use against him.”
The new case was an effort to prevent Trump from running for office again, Schoen said, “and that’s as undemocratic as it can be.”
Schoen, a criminal defense and civil rights attorney, and Bruce Castor, a former Pennsylvania county prosecutor, were announced as Trump’s legal team Sunday evening, a day after it was revealed the former president had separated with a another group of lawyers whom one person described as a mutual decision.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Schoen said he had no intention of arguing that Trump lost the election because of fraud, as Trump has repeatedly insisted, and would argue instead that the process itself is unconstitutional. since Trump has already left office and his words were protected by the First Amendment and did not incite a riot.
House Democrats plan to outline what happened Jan. 6 with a graphic detail: an effort to reach out to Republican senators who have largely avoided talking about the attack itself and Trump’s role in it, in instead of focusing on the indictment trial process. They are expected to play videos and verbally explain the violence of the day in hopes of agitating Republicans, most of whom fled the Senate that day when riots broke out.
The nine chamber prosecution managers who will argue the case are also expected to explain how they believe Trump’s actions in previous months led to this and ultimately incited insurgents to act.
His arguments will include a look at Trump’s “prolonged effort” to convince his supporters to believe his false claims that the election was stolen – and describe how his requests to come to Washington and his words immediately before the attack would have caused it directly.
The crowd that burst into the Capitol as the House and Senate counted the election votes not only looted the building, but repeatedly demanded the presidency of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and Vice President Mike Pence, who was in the ‘building to preside over the count.
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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.