“I consider it a privilege to represent the 45th president. The strength of our Constitution is about to be tested as never before in our history. It is strong and resilient. A document written for centuries, which will triumph once again over partisanship ., and always, “Castor said in a statement.
Castor, a Republican who was the elected district attorney for Pennsylvania’s third county, decided not to charge Cosby at a 2004 sexual encounter. He ran again for work in 2015 and his trial in the Cosby case was a key issue used against him by the Democrat who defeated him.
Castor has said he personally thought Cosby should have been arrested, but that the evidence was not solid enough to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
In 2004, Castor appeared before the state attorney general without success. In 2016, she became the state’s top lieutenant attorney general, Democrat Kathleen Kane, as she faced charges of leaking protected investigated information to tarnish a rival and lie to the grand jury about it. She was convicted, leaving Castor as acting state attorney general for a few days.
Attorney David Schoen will also lead the defense team.
Schoen met with financier Jeffrey Epstein to join his defense team on sex trafficking charges just days before Epstein was killed in New York City jail.
In an interview with the Atlanta Jewish Times last year, Schoen said he had also been contacted by Trump associate Roger Stone before Stone’s trial to be part of the team and was later detained by manage your appeal. Trump commuted Stone’s sentence and then pardoned him. Schoen said in the interview that the case against Stone was “very unfair and politicized.”
Sunday’s announcement was intended to promote a sense of stability around Trump’s defense team as his impeachment trial approaches. The former president has struggled to hire and retain lawyers willing to represent him against the charges he incited in the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol, which happened when a crowd of loyalists stormed Congress as lawmakers met on Jan. 6 to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
SEE ALSO: Donald Trump’s entire legal team leaves the week before the indictment: sources
This is in contrast to his first indictment, when Trump’s lawyer, who had a high profile, included Alan Dershowitz, one of the country’s best-known criminal defense attorneys, as well as the House’s attorney. Blanca Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, who has argued cases before the Supreme Court.
The Trump team had initially announced that Butch Bowers, a South Carolina attorney, would lead his legal team after a presentation by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. But this team ran aground over the weekend due to differences in legal strategy.
One person familiar with his thinking said Bowers and another South Carolina lawyer, Deborah Barbier, left the team because Trump wanted them to use a defense that was based on allegations of election fraud and that the lawyers were unwilling. to do so. The person was not allowed to speak publicly about the situation and requested anonymity
Republicans and aides to Trump, the first president to be indicted twice in U.S. history, have made it clear they intend to make a simple argument at trial: Trump’s trial, scheduled for week 8 of February, it is unconstitutional because he is no longer in office.
SEE ALSO: Congresswoman speaks of impeachment trial: “This president must be responsible”
“Democrats’ efforts to accuse a president who has already left office are totally unconstitutional and so bad for our country,” Trump adviser Jason Miller said.
However, many law scholars say there is no impediment to a prosecution trial despite Trump leaving the White House. One argument is that state constitutions prior to the U.S. Constitution allowed for dismissal after officials left office. The drafters of the Constitution also did not specifically ban the practice.
Neither Schoen nor Castor returned phone messages seeking comments Sunday evening.
SEE ALSO: Trump loses the main prosecution lawyers a week before the trial, according to sources
– Associated Press contributed to this report.
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