WASHINGTON, Jan 18, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – 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 right-wing 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.
– Reliable Republican jurors –
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.
– Trump’s lawyers –
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.
His former longtime attorney Michael Cohen is serving a three-year sentence
and has turned on his old boss. Before going behind bars for a variety of
crimes last year, Cohen called Trump a “con man” and a “cheat.”
Where Cohen left off, an even bigger firebrand, former New York mayor Rudy
Giuliani, stepped in to serve as attorney and roving political fixer.
Giuliani’s relentless attempts to prove conspiracy theories around Biden’s
family activities in Ukraine are interwoven with the whole impeachment case
against Trump. Although Giuliani is not a government employee, he has
traveled to Ukraine to lead the search for dirt on Biden.
And the outspoken former federal prosecutor who was in charge of New York
on 9/11, has pushed to be allowed in on the Senate impeachment trial team. A
wary White House has shut the door.
Friday evening, House Democrats released documents showing Lev Parnas, who
served as Giuliani’s envoy to Ukrainian officials, had been in extensive
contact with an aide to Representative Devin Nunes, the highest-ranking
Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.
The WhatsApp messages, which run from February to May of last year,
indicate that Nunes’s office was aware of the alleged efforts to try and
force Ukraine into investigating Biden.
Parnas made headlines Thursday when, hours before Trump’s impeachment trial
opened, he broke ranks to charge that the president “knew exactly what was
going on” regarding his and business partner Igor Fruman’s efforts to
influence Ukrainian authorities.
Trump denied knowing Parnas. “I don’t believe I’ve ever spoken to him,” he
told reporters.
But Parnas told MSNBC that Trump was lying. “We’re not friends,” the
Ukrainain-born businessman said. “But he knew exactly who we were.”