Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump adds star power to legal team
Dershowitz, Starr join defense group for trial in Senate
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has assembled a made-for-TV legal team for his Senate trial that includes household names like Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, the prosecutor whose investigation two decades ago resulted in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
The additions Friday bring experience in the politics of impeachment as well as constitutional law to the team, which faced a busy weekend of deadlines for legal briefs and other documents before opening arguments begin Tuesday.
The two new Trump attorneys are already nationally known for their involvement in some of the more consequential legal dramas of recent American history and for their regular appearances on Fox News.
Dershowitz, a former Harvard professor, is a constitutional expert whose expansive views of presidential powers echo those of Trump. Starr is a veteran of partisan battles in Washington, having led the investigation into Clinton’s affair with a White House intern that brought the president’s impeachment by the House.
Clinton was acquitted at his Senate trial, the same outcome Trump is expecting from the Republican-led chamber.
Still, the lead roles for Trump’s defense will be played by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, who also represented Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
There are some signs of tension between the president’s outside legal team and lawyers within the White House. The White House would not confirm the fuller roster of the president’s lawyers Friday, and some officials
there bristled that the announcement was not coordinated with them.
A legal brief laying out the contours of the Trump defense, due at noon Monday, was still being drafted, with White House attorneys and the outside legal team grappling over how political the document should be. Those inside the administration have echoed warnings from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that the pleadings must be sensitive to the Senate’s more staid traditions and leave the sharper rhetoric to Twitter and cable news.
White House lawyers were successful in keeping Trump from adding House Republicans to the team, but they also advised him against tapping Dershowitz, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity. They’re concerned because of the professor’s association with
Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire who killed himself in jail last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Dershowitz confirmed his role in a series of tweets Friday, saying, he would
“present oral arguments at the Senate trial to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal.”
Dershowitz said of himself: “While Professor Dershowitz is nonpartisan when it comes to the Constitution — he opposed the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and voted for Hillary Clinton — he believes the issues at stake go to the heart of our enduring Constitution.”
A Fox News host said on the air that Starr would be parting ways with the network as a result of his role on the legal team.
Other members of Trump’s legal defense include Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general; Jane Raskin, who was part of the president’s legal team during Mueller’s investigation; and Robert Ray, who was part of the Whitewater investigation of the Clintons.
Trump was impeached by the House last month on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress, stemming from his pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democratic rivals as he was withholding security aid and his efforts to block the ensuing congressional probe.
Senators were sworn in as jurors Thursday by Chief Justice John Roberts.
The president insists he did nothing wrong.
Starr, besides his 1990s role as independent counsel, is a former U.S. solicitor general and federal circuit court judge.
More recently, he was removed as president of Baylor University and then resigned as chancellor of the school in the wake of a review critical of the university’s handling of sexual assault allegations against football players.
Starr said his resignation was the result of the university’s board of regents seeking to place the school under new leadership following the scandal, not because he was accused of hiding or failing to act on information.
Dershowitz’s reputation has been damaged in recent years by his association with Epstein.
One of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has accused Dershowitz of participating in her abuse. Dershowitz has denied it and has been battling in court for years with Giuffre and her lawyers.
He recently wrote a book rejecting her allegations, called “Guilt by Accusation.”