WASHINGTON — Donald Trump has named two lawyers to his impeachment defense team, one day after it was revealed that the former president had parted ways with an earlier set of attorneys.
The two lawyers representing him will be an Alabama attorney, David Schoen, and a former prosecutor in Pennsylvania, Bruce Castor.
Several South Carolina lawyers who were set to represent Trump at the trial starting next week left the team on Saturday evening.
The departing lawyers, which include lead attorneys Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, left the defense team in what one person described as a “mutual decision” that reflected a difference of opinion on the direction of the case.
CNN and NBC News report that Trump has urged his legal team to focus on his still-unproven claims of widespread voter fraud as his defense, while those departing his legal team had pushed for a defense based on the legality of impeaching a former president.
Trump is the first president in American history to be impeached twice. He is set to stand trial in the Senate on a charge that he incited his supporters to storm Congress on Jan. 6.
The impeachment trial is slated to begin in the Senate on the week of Feb. 8. There is currently little support in convicting Trump among Senate Republicans, meaning that the former president will likely be acquitted.
