Ken Starr, celebrity lawyer join Trump defense team
Mexico's new plan to sell presidential jet: a raffle
Ken Starr, who was at the center of Bill Clinton's impeachment in the 1990s, and America's biggest celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz were announced Friday to be joining President Donald Trump's Senate impeachment defense.
The administration has yet to unveil the full team but confirmed that White House counsel Pat Cipollone will be lead lawyer, backed by Trump's personal attorney Jay Sekulow.
"President Trump has done nothing wrong and is confident that this team will defend him, the voters, and our democracy from this baseless, illegitimate impeachment," the White House said in a statement Friday evening. But where Cipollone is ultra-discreet, and rarely speaks on the record, Dershowitz and Starr will bring the legal world's equivalent of rock stardom when the trial begins on Tuesday.
US media reports said Starr, the special prosecutor in the 1998 Clinton impeachment saga, was joining the Trump legal team. He is a hero to many on the right, even if Clinton ultimately was acquitted in the Senate.
Among the first to react -with expletive-laden astonishment -- was Monica Lewinsky, whose affair with Clinton was the subject of Starr's investigation. "This is definitely an ' are you fucking kidding me?' kinda day," she tweeted.
No less controversial is the choice of Dershowitz, whose past clients include disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, as well as film director Roman Polanski and former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, both embroiled in notorious rape cases.
Dershowitz himself has been accused of being a witness and participant in Epstein's sex crimes allegations he strenuously denies. Dershowitz's most famous case was the successful defense of former NFL star O.J. Simpson, whose televised 1995 murder trial riveted the nation. In the Senate, Dershowitz, who teaches at Harvard University, says he'll be pursuing loftier matters.
In a post on Twitter Friday, Dershowitz said he would "present oral arguments at the Senate trial to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal."
Lead lawyer Cipollone is the author of the Republican president's uncompromising strategy to stonewall the Democrats' impeachment investigation, calling it "partisan and unconstitutional."
Another high-powered player will be Sekulow, a stalwart in the White House pushback against a two-year probe by special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump's controversial dealings with Russia.
A Supreme Court veteran and a big name on the rightwing evangelical Christian scene, he won't be dazzled by the bright lights of Washington's ultimate fight.
Rounding off the roster will be Robert Ray, another figure from the investigations into Clinton that rocked Washington in the 1990s, US media reported.
Trump has been impeached by the House of Representatives on accusations that he abused his office to try and force Ukraine into digging up dirt on leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. He was also impeached for allegedly obstructing Congress. But the White House enters the Senate trial with a massive advantage: Trump's Republicans have 53 of the 100 seats and the party is in lockstep.
The majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, echoes Trump's claim that the impeachment is a political hit job. As a man who has been fighting legal battles for decades including rape allegations, multiple real estate disputes, and bankruptcy Trump is no stranger to colorful lawyers.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has been struggling to find a buyer for what he considers the overly luxurious presidential jet, proposed a novel idea Friday: hold a raffle. The leftist austerity crusader has been vowing to sell the Boeing Dreamliner since his 2018 election campaign, saying "not even Donald Trump has a plane like that."
But it turns out it is not so easy to find a buyer for a massive jet customized with an executive bedroom, private bath, seating for 80 people and valued at $130 million. The few prospective buyers so far have all fallen through, leaving the government to search for creative ideas to offload the plane. Speaking at his daily news conference, Lopez Obrador proposed selling six million raffle tickets at a cost of 500 pesos each (about $25) and awarding the plane to one lucky winner.
"That would give us (about $150m), and we'd give the plane to the winner with a year or two of operating services," he said. The proposal soon became a trending topic on Twitter, as Mexicans spread memes with edited pictures of themselves flying the plane to work or the convenience store.