By ERIC TUCKER and JILL COLVIN Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump on Sunday appointed two attorneys to his indictment team for indictment, one day after it came to light that the former president had divorced a former lawyer.
The two attorneys representing him are David Schoen, a criminal defense attorney with offices in Alabama and New York, and Bruce Castor, a former state prosecutor in Pennsylvania. Both issued statements by a Trump adviser saying they had the honor of accepting the job.
“The strength of our Constitution is about to be tested like never before in our history. It is strong and resilient. A document that has been written for centuries, and it will triumph over and over again over bias, “said Castor, who served as district attorney for Montgomery County, outside Philadelphia, from 2000 to 2008.
Trump’s team revealed on Saturday that several attorneys in South Carolina who would represent him during the trial next week are no longer participating.
Trump, the first president in U.S. history to be arrested twice, will stand trial in the Senate on charges of inciting his supporters to storm Congress on January 6 when lawmakers rallied to win Joe Biden’s election victory confirm.
Republicans and Trump aides have made it clear they intend to make a simple argument at trial: Trump’s trial is unconstitutional because he is no longer in office. Lawyers say there is no impediment to an indictment, despite Trump leaving the White House.
“The Democrats’ attempts to accuse a president who has already left office are completely unconstitutional and so bad for our country,” Trump said.
Castor is as well known in Pennsylvania for a case he did not file as for any of the prosecutions he has brought. He refused to charge actor Bill Cosby after a woman went to the police in the suburbs of Philadelphia in 2005 to say that Cosby had drugged and molested her a year earlier.
A new prosecutor arrested Cosby in 2015 after documents from her civil case against Cosby were sealed in 2005, revealing Cosby’s damaging testimony about sexual encounters with the woman, Andrea Constand, and others.