BILL CLINTON’S PROSECUTOR TO DEFEND TRUMP AT SENATE TRIAL

WASHINGTON:US President Donald Trump has named Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz, two of the country’s top legal celebrities, in his team that will defend him in the US senate trial that starts on Tuesday to remove him from office, following his impeachment by the House of Representatives in December.

Starr’s investigations, as independent counsel, had led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton as US president in 1999, and Dershowitz, a retired Harvard law professor, has been a part of defence teams in several highprofile cases such as the trial of football star O J Simpson for murder and investor Jeffrey Epstein who had been accused of having sex with underage girls.

Epstein apparently killed himself in custody last year. One of his victims has alleged she had sex with Dershowitz on Epstein’s orders, which the lawyer has strenuously denied.

Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi and Robert Ray, who had taken over the Clinton investigation from Starr, were the other two names announced on Friday, taking up the strength of Trump’s defence team to eight. They will be led by Jay Sekulow and Pat Cipollone. The US president, who personally picked the new additions, is expected to ask some Republican lawmakers from the House to advise the team.

The Democrats will be represented by seven lawmakers, called impeachment “managers”. They will be led by Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee that conducted the impeachment inquiry, and include Gerald Nadler, head of the House judiciary panel.

The trial will start on Tuesday afternoon with Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts in the chair. The first business before the impeachment court will be the approval of rules to govern the proceedings. The chamber’s Republican leadership has not released any text on the rules and Democrats have been demanding that new witnesses must be deposed, including current and former aides of the president, such as former NSA John Bolton.