Ever since Donald Trump began his run for president, he has been surrounded by an ever-shifting cast of lawyers with varying abilities to control, channel and satisfy their mercurial and headstrong client.

During the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Michael Cohen arranged for hush money payments to be made to a former pornographic film actress. In the second year of Trump’s presidency, John Dowd, head of the team defending the president in the Russia investigation, quit after he concluded that Trump was refusing to listen to his counsel.

By Trump’s third year in office, he had found a new lawyer to do his bidding as Rudy Giuliani first undertook a campaign to undermine Joe Biden and then helped lead the fruitless effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, with stops in Ukraine and at Four Seasons Total Landscaping along the way.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/defence-says-trump-bears-no-responsibility-for-us-capitol-attack-as-impeachment-trial-set-to-conclude-363294">Defence says Trump bears no responsibility for US Capitol attack</a>

On Friday, the latest members of Trump’s legal cast took center stage in his impeachment trial and for the most part delivered exactly what he always seems to want from his lawyers: not precise, learned legal arguments but public combat, in this case including twisted facts, rewritten history and attacks on opponents.

Despite an often unorthodox and undisciplined approach from his legal teams, Trump has survived more legal challenges as president than any of his recent predecessors. Although federal investigators uncovered the hush money payments and significant evidence he may have obstructed the Russia investigation, he was never charged. He was acquitted by the Senate in his first impeachment trial related to the Ukraine pressure campaign, and he appeared poised Friday to see a similar outcome in this impeachment.

Legal experts, white-collar defense lawyers and even some of Trump’s former lawyers acknowledge that his survival has largely been a function of the fact that he was the president of the United States, a position that gave him great powers to evade legal consequence.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-football-was-at-danger-during-capitol-riots-footage-reveals-363277" hreflang="en">US 'football' was at danger during Capitol riots, footage reveals</a>

“At the outset of the administration I would have said it would be remarkable for someone to run this gauntlet and survive,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former longtime senior Justice Department official.

After initially stumbling in its first round of arguments Tuesday, the latest team — either the seventh or eighth to defend Trump since he became president, depending on your math — followed the playbook Trump has long wanted his lawyers to adhere to.

They channeled his grievances and aggressively spun, making what-about arguments that tried to cast his own behavior as not so bad when compared with the other side. Democrats found their performance infuriatingly misleading, but it potentially provided the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate opposed to convicting Trump with talking points they can use to justify their votes.

“Hypocrisy,” one of Trump’s lawyers, Michael van der Veen, said after they played a several-minutes-long clip of prominent Democrats and media commentators using language like “fight” in an effort to show that Trump’s own words before the riot could have had no role in inciting the violence.

“The reality is, Mr. Trump was not in any way, shape or form instructing these people to fight or to use physical violence,” van der Veen said. “What he was instructing them to do was to challenge their opponents in primary elections to push for sweeping election reforms, to hold Big Tech responsible.”

Serving as one of Trump’s lawyers is a true high-wire act for a range of reasons, from his indifference to the law and norms to his long-held belief that he is his own best defender and spokesman. In the 1970s, under the tutelage of lawyer Roy Cohn — whose aggressiveness was matched by his lack of adherence to ethical standards — Trump began conflating legal and public relations problems.

These factors have often led Trump to ignore legal advice and dictate to the lawyers what he wants them to do. Some lawyers have survived for years with Trump through various investigations, such as Jay Sekulow and Florida-based couple Marty and Jane Raskin. They were involved in defending Trump in his first impeachment battle. And they had successes defending Trump in the highest-profile investigation he faced as president, the special counsel inquiry into possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign in 2016 and Russian officials.

But those lawyers are not part of his current team.

Neither is Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel who spent weeks at the end of the Trump term batting away various efforts to overturn the election results. As he did with a previous White House counsel, Donald McGahn, Trump repeatedly wanted the White House counsels to act as his personal lawyers.

And Trump’s willingness to listen to lawyers who tell him what he does not want to hear dwindled significantly after the Nov. 3 election. Instead, he relied on Giuliani, whom other Trump aides blame for ensnaring Trump in his two impeachment battles, to guide him in his effort to overturn the results of the election.

Giuliani repeatedly told associates that he would be involved in the impeachment defense, despite his status as a potential witness, since he addressed the Trump rally crowd on Jan. 6. Trump ultimately told Giuliani that he would not be involved.

But Trump’s advisers struggled to find a legal team that would defend him.

Finally, with help from an ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Trump’s advisers announced that he had hired Butch Bowers, a well-known lawyer with experience representing South Carolina politicians facing crises.

But just over a week before the trial was to begin, Bowers and the four lawyers connected to him abruptly left, though another lawyer, David Schoen, who was expected from the beginning to be part of the team, remained on board.

In another reminder of his ad hoc approach, Trump asked associates Thursday night whether it was too late to add or remove lawyers from the team, as Schoen briefly told the team he was quitting over a debate about how to use the video clips the defense showed Friday. Trump called Schoen and he agreed to rejoin the team, two people briefed on the events said.

Just a few hours before Trump’s team was to appear in the well of the Senate, the group was still hashing out the order of appearance of his two chief lawyers, Schoen and Bruce Castor. In the end, they decided that a third lawyer, van der Veen, would deliver the opening act.

The uncertainty apparently stemmed from Castor’s widely panned appearance Tuesday, when he delivered a rambling, unfocused opening statement that enraged his client. Trump has told advisers and friends he did not want to hear from Castor anymore, people familiar with the Trump team’s discussions said.

People familiar with the makeup of the legal team said Eric Herschmann, a lawyer and ally of the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who worked in the West Wing in the final year of the administration, was a key figure in putting it together.

When Trump asked Herschmann who had hired Castor after his disastrous outing Tuesday, Herschmann, according to two people with knowledge of the exchange, sought to lay the blame on Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff. Herschmann did not respond to an email seeking comment.

By the end of the day Friday, van der Veen, a personal injury lawyer from Philadelphia, had emerged as Trump’s primary defender, handling questions from senators, making a series of false and outlandish claims, calling the impeachment a version of “constitutional cancel culture” and declaring that Friday’s proceedings had been his “most miserable” experience in Washington.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead House impeachment manager, responded, “I guess we’re sorry, but man, you should have been here on Jan. 6.”

Ever since Donald Trump began his run for president, he has been surrounded by an ever-shifting cast of lawyers with varying abilities to control, channel and satisfy their mercurial and headstrong client.

Ever since Donald Trump began his run for president, he has been surrounded by an ever-shifting cast of lawyers with varying abilities to control, channel and satisfy their mercurial and headstrong client. During the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Michael Cohen arranged for hush money payments to be made to a former pornographic film actress. In the second year of Trump’s presidency, John Dowd, head of the team defending the president in the Russia investigation, quit after he concluded that Trump was refusing to listen to his counsel. By Trump’s third year in office, he had found a new lawyer to do his bidding as Rudy Giuliani first undertook a campaign to undermine Joe Biden and then helped lead the fruitless effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, with stops in Ukraine and at Four Seasons Total Landscaping along the way. Also read| Defence says Trump bears no responsibility for US Capitol attack On Friday, the latest members of Trump’s legal cast took center stage in his impeachment trial and for the most part delivered exactly what he always seems to want from his lawyers: not precise, learned legal arguments but public combat, in this case including twisted facts, rewritten history and attacks on opponents. Despite an often unorthodox and undisciplined approach from his legal teams, Trump has survived more legal challenges as president than any of his recent predecessors. Although federal investigators uncovered the hush money payments and significant evidence he may have obstructed the Russia investigation, he was never charged. He was acquitted by the Senate in his first impeachment trial related to the Ukraine pressure campaign, and he appeared poised Friday to see a similar outcome in this impeachment. Legal experts, white-collar defense lawyers and even some of Trump’s former lawyers acknowledge that his survival has largely been a function of the fact that he was the president of the United States, a position that gave him great powers to evade legal consequence. Also read| US 'football' was at danger during Capitol riots, footage reveals “At the outset of the administration I would have said it would be remarkable for someone to run this gauntlet and survive,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former longtime senior Justice Department official. After initially stumbling in its first round of arguments Tuesday, the latest team — either the seventh or eighth to defend Trump since he became president, depending on your math — followed the playbook Trump has long wanted his lawyers to adhere to. They channeled his grievances and aggressively spun, making what-about arguments that tried to cast his own behavior as not so bad when compared with the other side. Democrats found their performance infuriatingly misleading, but it potentially provided the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate opposed to convicting Trump with talking points they can use to justify their votes. “Hypocrisy,” one of Trump’s lawyers, Michael van der Veen, said after they played a several-minutes-long clip of prominent Democrats and media commentators using language like “fight” in an effort to show that Trump’s own words before the riot could have had no role in inciting the violence. “The reality is, Mr. Trump was not in any way, shape or form instructing these people to fight or to use physical violence,” van der Veen said. “What he was instructing them to do was to challenge their opponents in primary elections to push for sweeping election reforms, to hold Big Tech responsible.” Serving as one of Trump’s lawyers is a true high-wire act for a range of reasons, from his indifference to the law and norms to his long-held belief that he is his own best defender and spokesman. In the 1970s, under the tutelage of lawyer Roy Cohn — whose aggressiveness was matched by his lack of adherence to ethical standards — Trump began conflating legal and public relations problems. These factors have often led Trump to ignore legal advice and dictate to the lawyers what he wants them to do. Some lawyers have survived for years with Trump through various investigations, such as Jay Sekulow and Florida-based couple Marty and Jane Raskin. They were involved in defending Trump in his first impeachment battle. And they had successes defending Trump in the highest-profile investigation he faced as president, the special counsel inquiry into possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign in 2016 and Russian officials. But those lawyers are not part of his current team. Neither is Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel who spent weeks at the end of the Trump term batting away various efforts to overturn the election results. As he did with a previous White House counsel, Donald McGahn, Trump repeatedly wanted the White House counsels to act as his personal lawyers. And Trump’s willingness to listen to lawyers who tell him what he does not want to hear dwindled significantly after the Nov. 3 election. Instead, he relied on Giuliani, whom other Trump aides blame for ensnaring Trump in his two impeachment battles, to guide him in his effort to overturn the results of the election. Giuliani repeatedly told associates that he would be involved in the impeachment defense, despite his status as a potential witness, since he addressed the Trump rally crowd on Jan. 6. Trump ultimately told Giuliani that he would not be involved. But Trump’s advisers struggled to find a legal team that would defend him. Finally, with help from an ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Trump’s advisers announced that he had hired Butch Bowers, a well-known lawyer with experience representing South Carolina politicians facing crises. But just over a week before the trial was to begin, Bowers and the four lawyers connected to him abruptly left, though another lawyer, David Schoen, who was expected from the beginning to be part of the team, remained on board. In another reminder of his ad hoc approach, Trump asked associates Thursday night whether it was too late to add or remove lawyers from the team, as Schoen briefly told the team he was quitting over a debate about how to use the video clips the defense showed Friday. Trump called Schoen and he agreed to rejoin the team, two people briefed on the events said. Just a few hours before Trump’s team was to appear in the well of the Senate, the group was still hashing out the order of appearance of his two chief lawyers, Schoen and Bruce Castor. In the end, they decided that a third lawyer, van der Veen, would deliver the opening act. The uncertainty apparently stemmed from Castor’s widely panned appearance Tuesday, when he delivered a rambling, unfocused opening statement that enraged his client. Trump has told advisers and friends he did not want to hear from Castor anymore, people familiar with the Trump team’s discussions said. People familiar with the makeup of the legal team said Eric Herschmann, a lawyer and ally of the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who worked in the West Wing in the final year of the administration, was a key figure in putting it together. When Trump asked Herschmann who had hired Castor after his disastrous outing Tuesday, Herschmann, according to two people with knowledge of the exchange, sought to lay the blame on Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff. Herschmann did not respond to an email seeking comment. By the end of the day Friday, van der Veen, a personal injury lawyer from Philadelphia, had emerged as Trump’s primary defender, handling questions from senators, making a series of false and outlandish claims, calling the impeachment a version of “constitutional cancel culture” and declaring that Friday’s proceedings had been his “most miserable” experience in Washington. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead House impeachment manager, responded, “I guess we’re sorry, but man, you should have been here on Jan. 6.”

For the defense: Twisted facts and other staples of the Trump playbook

The second impeachment trial of former President Donald <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/fast-pace-expected-for-trumps-second-impeachment-trial-362489">Trump </a>began on Tuesday with the US Senate declaring it constitutional with a 56-44 vote.

Watch:

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"On this vote, the yeas are 56, the nays are 44 and pursuant to res. 47, the Senate having voted in the affirmative on the foregoing question, the Senate should proceed with the trial as provided under the provisions of that resolution," Patrick Leahy, presiding Senator, announced.

The first test was about the constitutionality of the trial. It was Trump's lawyers versus Democrat impeachment managers. The vote came after hours of arguments.

Trump's lawyers said the trial was not constitutional because he is out of office, while the Democrats pointed to precedent and the opinions of many legal scholars, including conservatives, who said the trial is valid.

"The section I read [referring to US constitution] 'judgment' - in other words, the bad thing that can happen, the judgment - 'in cases of impeachment' - i.e., what we are doing - 'shall not extend further than removal from office.' What is so hard about that? Which of those words are unclear? 'shall not extend further than removal from office'. President Trump is no longer is in office. The object of the constitution has been achieved. He was removed by the voters," Bruce Castor, Trump's defense attorney said.&nbsp;

Attorney Bruce Castor added that the real reason behind House of Representatives wanting to convict Donald Trump was because they do not wish to see him as a political rival in the future.

Castor added that the storming of the Capitol "should be denounced in the most vigorous terms" and the rioters should be prosecuted. The defense contention reflected that "a small group of criminals" - not Trump - were responsible for the violence.

The impeachment managers managed to pick up one vote from Republicans &nbsp;Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Senator who blamed Trump's lawyer for bad performance.

Two weeks ago he had voted in favour of an effort to dismiss the trial, but on Tuesday he voted with Democrats to move forward, which came across as an unprecedented move.

Cassidy joined Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine and others for dismissing the Trump team's claims.

"I said, I'd be an impartial juror. Anyone listening to those arguments, the house managers were focused, they were organized, they relied upon both precedent, the constitution and legal scholars. They made a compelling argument. President Trump's team were disorganized, they did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand and when they talked about it, they kind of glided over it, almost as if they were embarrassed by their arguments," Senator Bill Cassidy said.

A graphic video showing the former president egging a rally crowd to march to the capitol and “fight like hell” against his re-election defeat and images of the attack on Congress came soon after - all were showcased as the trial opened on Tuesday.

The trial is expected to be fast with each side having upto 16 hours to make their case and final vote on whether to convict or acquit Donald Trump could take place early next week.

The timeline would make it the fastest impeachment trial for a president in American history.

The second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump began on Tuesday with the US Senate declaring it constitutional with a 56-44 vote. Watch: "On this vote, the yeas are 56, the nays are 44 and pursuant to res.

The second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump began on Tuesday with the US Senate declaring it constitutional with a 56-44 vote. Watch: "On this vote, the yeas are 56, the nays are 44 and pursuant to res. 47, the Senate having voted in the affirmative on the foregoing question, the Senate should proceed with the trial as provided under the provisions of that resolution," Patrick Leahy, presiding Senator, announced. The first test was about the constitutionality of the trial. It was Trump's lawyers versus Democrat impeachment managers. The vote came after hours of arguments. Trump's lawyers said the trial was not constitutional because he is out of office, while the Democrats pointed to precedent and the opinions of many legal scholars, including conservatives, who said the trial is valid. "The section I read [referring to US constitution] 'judgment' - in other words, the bad thing that can happen, the judgment - 'in cases of impeachment' - i.e., what we are doing - 'shall not extend further than removal from office.' What is so hard about that? Which of those words are unclear? 'shall not extend further than removal from office'. President Trump is no longer is in office. The object of the constitution has been achieved. He was removed by the voters," Bruce Castor, Trump's defense attorney said. Attorney Bruce Castor added that the real reason behind House of Representatives wanting to convict Donald Trump was because they do not wish to see him as a political rival in the future. Castor added that the storming of the Capitol "should be denounced in the most vigorous terms" and the rioters should be prosecuted. The defense contention reflected that "a small group of criminals" - not Trump - were responsible for the violence. The impeachment managers managed to pick up one vote from Republicans Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Senator who blamed Trump's lawyer for bad performance. Two weeks ago he had voted in favour of an effort to dismiss the trial, but on Tuesday he voted with Democrats to move forward, which came across as an unprecedented move. Cassidy joined Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine and others for dismissing the Trump team's claims. "I said, I'd be an impartial juror. Anyone listening to those arguments, the house managers were focused, they were organized, they relied upon both precedent, the constitution and legal scholars. They made a compelling argument. President Trump's team were disorganized, they did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand and when they talked about it, they kind of glided over it, almost as if they were embarrassed by their arguments," Senator Bill Cassidy said. A graphic video showing the former president egging a rally crowd to march to the capitol and “fight like hell” against his re-election defeat and images of the attack on Congress came soon after - all were showcased as the trial opened on Tuesday. The trial is expected to be fast with each side having upto 16 hours to make their case and final vote on whether to convict or acquit Donald Trump could take place early next week. The timeline would make it the fastest impeachment trial for a president in American history.

Senate declares Trump's impeachment constitutional, begins proceedings

A divided Senate voted Tuesday to proceed with Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, narrowly rejecting constitutional objections after House prosecutors opened their case with a harrowing 13-minute video capturing the deadly Capitol riot he stands accused of inciting.

Though the presentation stunned senators who lived through the rampage into silence, only six Republicans joined Democrats in clearing the way for the case to be heard. The 56-44 vote was the second indication in two weeks that Trump was all but certain to be acquitted.

“The result of this trial is preordained,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said flatly. “President Trump will be acquitted.”

Even so, the nine House Democrats prosecuting the former president aimed their opening arguments squarely at Republicans who had the power to change the outcome. They cited an array of conservative legal scholars to argue that the Senate not only had the right to try a former president for official misconduct, but an obligation. And they offered a raw appeal from the well of the Senate, where a month before lawmakers had taken shelter as the pro-Trump mob closed in.

“Senators, this cannot be our future,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the lead manager, as he fought back tears. He described being locked inside the House chamber while colleagues called loved ones “to say goodbye” and his own daughter and son-in-law feared for their lives nearby.

“This cannot be the future of America,” he continued. “We cannot have presidents inciting and mobilizing mob violence against our government and our institutions because they refuse to accept the will of the people.”

It was a prelude to a case that Raskin and his team will begin prosecuting in full Wednesday. They seek to prove that Trump spent his final months in office trying to overthrow the election, using baseless claims of widespread voter fraud to rally supporters in Washington and then encourage them to march to the Capitol to try to confront Congress as it met to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

The House managers faced off against a hastily assembled legal team for Trump that offered an at-times meandering defense, before ultimately arguing that trying the former president would violate the Constitution. It began with a circuitous presentation from Bruce Castor, who complimented the compelling case made by the managers and then launched into a speech that appeared to confuse and bore some senators in both parties.

His partner David Schoen was sharper, asserting that Democrats were driven by an “insatiable lust” to destroy Trump. Schoen warned that they would instead damage the country by setting a new standard to pursue former officials, despite the fact that the House voted with bipartisan support to impeach Trump before he left office.

“Under their unsupportable constitutional theory, and tortured reading of the text, every civil officer who has served is at risk of impeachment if any given group elected to the House decides that what was thought to be important service to the country when they served now deserves to be canceled,” Schoen said.

The defense’s case drew perplexed reactions from Republicans, evidently including Trump, who — barred from Twitter and out of sight in Florida — lacks the public megaphone he frequently used to weigh in on his first trial. The performance prompted at least one Republican, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, to side with Democrats on the vote to allow the trial to proceed.

“Anyone who listened to President Trump’s legal team saw they were unfocused, they attempted to avoid the issue and they talked about everything but the issue at hand,” said Cassidy, who had voted last month in favor of a constitutional objection to the trial and was the only Republican to switch his position on the matter Tuesday. He quickly drew rebukes from the Louisiana Republican Party.

The debate reflected the historic nature of the undertaking. Though in the 19th century the Senate agreed to try a war secretary after he left office, it has never before sat in judgment of a former president. Trump is also the first president ever to be impeached and stand trial twice, and certainly the only one to require a court of impeachment to don masks and meet in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

With senators in both parties eager to conclude an undertaking whose outcome was clear, they agreed to rules that would allow for an extraordinarily rapid impeachment trial, with a verdict expected as soon as this weekend. It could conclude in as little as half the time of Trump’s first trial.

The speed reflected Democrats’ fears that pausing to judge Trump would spoil the momentum behind Biden’s agenda. Republicans, too, had good reason to want the trial over with, closing a chapter that has been divisive and damaging to their party.

By embracing the defense’s arguments for dismissal, Republicans gave themselves cover to acquit Trump without judging the case on its merits. Many Republican senators have said publicly and privately that they hold Trump at least partly responsible for the assault at the Capitol, but the former president retains a singular hold on their voters and their party. A vote to convict could be politically perilous.

Others, like Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, continue to insist they will serve as impartial jurors and are open to conviction even if they voted to dismiss the case on constitutional grounds. But the two positions are difficult to reconcile.

Seventeen Republicans would have to abandon Trump to reach the two-thirds threshold to convict him. In the vote Tuesday, the six Republicans who said the trial should go forward were Cassidy, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Still, it was clear the House managers had fulfilled their goal of forcing senators to stare down the reality of what unfolded on Jan. 6 and contemplate Trump’s role in the rampage. Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, had senators sitting silently in their chamber, reliving the assault through a slickly produced video — complete with graphic scenes of violence by the rioters, who were using the kinds of expletives seldom heard on the Senate floor.

At one point, the anguished screams of a police officer echoed through the Senate chamber as video showed that he was nearly crushed by the mob at the door. Raskin pointed out that five people, including an officer, had died.

His appeal followed a denser constitutional and historical argument in which Raskin warned senators that the president wanted them to create a dangerous “January exception” that would undermine the founders’ system of checks and balances. Drawing from the 1787 Constitutional Convention and political logic familiar to lawmakers, he insisted forgoing a trial would send the message that future presidents are immune from wrongdoing in their final weeks in office.

“Everyone can see immediately why this is so dangerous,” he said. “It is an invitation to the president to take his best shot at anything he may want to do on his way out the door, including using violent means to lock that door, to hang on to the Oval Office at all costs and to block the peaceful transfer of power.”

The words still hung in the Senate chamber as Raskin hit play on a video montage of the assault, interspersing the president’s own speech with footage of the pro-Trump throng mobbing the Capitol and marauding through its corridors.

“He would have you believe there is absolutely nothing the Senate can do about it,” Raskin said, gesturing at the images. “No trial. No facts. He wants you to decide that the Senate is powerless at that point. That can’t be right.”

Raskin said the framers had intended just the opposite. They had been perfectly comfortable with impeaching former officials, he said.

There were other, subtler nudges to pull Republicans into the trial. The managers repeatedly referred to conservatives’ favored approaches to analyzing the Constitution, cited legal scholars associated with the conservative Federalist Society and embraced an unlikely ally, Charles J. Cooper, an influential conservative lawyer allied with congressional leaders who made a forceful argument this week in The Wall Street Journal in favor of a trial.

As Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado walked senators through the chamber’s own precedent on the question, he said their predecessors had confronted and rejected the same argument as Trump’s in the case of the war secretary in 1876.

“Literally, they were sitting in the same chairs you all are sitting in today, they were outraged by that argument,” he said, looking out at the chamber.

The arguments from Trump’s three-person defense team, installed just two weeks ago, were less cohesive.

Perhaps to his benefit, Castor took the air out of the room after Raskin’s vivid description of Jan 6. with an ambling, and at times contradictory, monologue about the passions of the moment and senators’ love of country. After nearly an hour, he reached a conclusion, saying that as a private citizen, Trump should not be impeached, and that if the Justice Department believed he had done anything wrong, it would be prosecuting him.

“There is no opportunity where the president of the United States can run rampant in January at the end of his term and just go away scot free,” Castor said. “The Department of Justice does know what to do with such people.”

He argued that Democrats really just wanted to make sure that Trump could not run again.

Following him at the podium, Schoen took a more adversarial role. He called Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, who was presiding as the Senate’s president pro tempore in place of Chief Justice John Roberts, a biased judge. Previewing the defense's own presentation expected this week, he said that Trump’s admonition to his supporters on Jan. 6 to “fight like hell” was protected free speech.

Schoen derided the managers for hiring a “movie company” to stitch together the most gruesome scenes of the attack as if it were a “blood sport.” But he played his own video presentation of clips of Democratic lawmakers through the years calling for Trump to be impeached, as ominous music played in the background.

A divided Senate voted Tuesday to proceed with Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, narrowly rejecting constitutional objections after House prosecutors opened their case with a harrowing 13-minute video capturing the deadly Capitol riot he stands accused of inciting.

A divided Senate voted Tuesday to proceed with Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, narrowly rejecting constitutional objections after House prosecutors opened their case with a harrowing 13-minute video capturing the deadly Capitol riot he stands accused of inciting. Though the presentation stunned senators who lived through the rampage into silence, only six Republicans joined Democrats in clearing the way for the case to be heard. The 56-44 vote was the second indication in two weeks that Trump was all but certain to be acquitted. “The result of this trial is preordained,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said flatly. “President Trump will be acquitted.” Even so, the nine House Democrats prosecuting the former president aimed their opening arguments squarely at Republicans who had the power to change the outcome. They cited an array of conservative legal scholars to argue that the Senate not only had the right to try a former president for official misconduct, but an obligation. And they offered a raw appeal from the well of the Senate, where a month before lawmakers had taken shelter as the pro-Trump mob closed in. “Senators, this cannot be our future,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the lead manager, as he fought back tears. He described being locked inside the House chamber while colleagues called loved ones “to say goodbye” and his own daughter and son-in-law feared for their lives nearby. “This cannot be the future of America,” he continued. “We cannot have presidents inciting and mobilizing mob violence against our government and our institutions because they refuse to accept the will of the people.” It was a prelude to a case that Raskin and his team will begin prosecuting in full Wednesday. They seek to prove that Trump spent his final months in office trying to overthrow the election, using baseless claims of widespread voter fraud to rally supporters in Washington and then encourage them to march to the Capitol to try to confront Congress as it met to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. The House managers faced off against a hastily assembled legal team for Trump that offered an at-times meandering defense, before ultimately arguing that trying the former president would violate the Constitution. It began with a circuitous presentation from Bruce Castor, who complimented the compelling case made by the managers and then launched into a speech that appeared to confuse and bore some senators in both parties. His partner David Schoen was sharper, asserting that Democrats were driven by an “insatiable lust” to destroy Trump. Schoen warned that they would instead damage the country by setting a new standard to pursue former officials, despite the fact that the House voted with bipartisan support to impeach Trump before he left office. “Under their unsupportable constitutional theory, and tortured reading of the text, every civil officer who has served is at risk of impeachment if any given group elected to the House decides that what was thought to be important service to the country when they served now deserves to be canceled,” Schoen said. The defense’s case drew perplexed reactions from Republicans, evidently including Trump, who — barred from Twitter and out of sight in Florida — lacks the public megaphone he frequently used to weigh in on his first trial. The performance prompted at least one Republican, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, to side with Democrats on the vote to allow the trial to proceed. “Anyone who listened to President Trump’s legal team saw they were unfocused, they attempted to avoid the issue and they talked about everything but the issue at hand,” said Cassidy, who had voted last month in favor of a constitutional objection to the trial and was the only Republican to switch his position on the matter Tuesday. He quickly drew rebukes from the Louisiana Republican Party. The debate reflected the historic nature of the undertaking. Though in the 19th century the Senate agreed to try a war secretary after he left office, it has never before sat in judgment of a former president. Trump is also the first president ever to be impeached and stand trial twice, and certainly the only one to require a court of impeachment to don masks and meet in the middle of a deadly pandemic. With senators in both parties eager to conclude an undertaking whose outcome was clear, they agreed to rules that would allow for an extraordinarily rapid impeachment trial, with a verdict expected as soon as this weekend. It could conclude in as little as half the time of Trump’s first trial. The speed reflected Democrats’ fears that pausing to judge Trump would spoil the momentum behind Biden’s agenda. Republicans, too, had good reason to want the trial over with, closing a chapter that has been divisive and damaging to their party. By embracing the defense’s arguments for dismissal, Republicans gave themselves cover to acquit Trump without judging the case on its merits. Many Republican senators have said publicly and privately that they hold Trump at least partly responsible for the assault at the Capitol, but the former president retains a singular hold on their voters and their party. A vote to convict could be politically perilous. Others, like Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, continue to insist they will serve as impartial jurors and are open to conviction even if they voted to dismiss the case on constitutional grounds. But the two positions are difficult to reconcile. Seventeen Republicans would have to abandon Trump to reach the two-thirds threshold to convict him. In the vote Tuesday, the six Republicans who said the trial should go forward were Cassidy, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania. Still, it was clear the House managers had fulfilled their goal of forcing senators to stare down the reality of what unfolded on Jan. 6 and contemplate Trump’s role in the rampage. Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, had senators sitting silently in their chamber, reliving the assault through a slickly produced video — complete with graphic scenes of violence by the rioters, who were using the kinds of expletives seldom heard on the Senate floor. At one point, the anguished screams of a police officer echoed through the Senate chamber as video showed that he was nearly crushed by the mob at the door. Raskin pointed out that five people, including an officer, had died. His appeal followed a denser constitutional and historical argument in which Raskin warned senators that the president wanted them to create a dangerous “January exception” that would undermine the founders’ system of checks and balances. Drawing from the 1787 Constitutional Convention and political logic familiar to lawmakers, he insisted forgoing a trial would send the message that future presidents are immune from wrongdoing in their final weeks in office. “Everyone can see immediately why this is so dangerous,” he said. “It is an invitation to the president to take his best shot at anything he may want to do on his way out the door, including using violent means to lock that door, to hang on to the Oval Office at all costs and to block the peaceful transfer of power.” The words still hung in the Senate chamber as Raskin hit play on a video montage of the assault, interspersing the president’s own speech with footage of the pro-Trump throng mobbing the Capitol and marauding through its corridors. “He would have you believe there is absolutely nothing the Senate can do about it,” Raskin said, gesturing at the images. “No trial. No facts. He wants you to decide that the Senate is powerless at that point. That can’t be right.” Raskin said the framers had intended just the opposite. They had been perfectly comfortable with impeaching former officials, he said. There were other, subtler nudges to pull Republicans into the trial. The managers repeatedly referred to conservatives’ favored approaches to analyzing the Constitution, cited legal scholars associated with the conservative Federalist Society and embraced an unlikely ally, Charles J. Cooper, an influential conservative lawyer allied with congressional leaders who made a forceful argument this week in The Wall Street Journal in favor of a trial. As Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado walked senators through the chamber’s own precedent on the question, he said their predecessors had confronted and rejected the same argument as Trump’s in the case of the war secretary in 1876. “Literally, they were sitting in the same chairs you all are sitting in today, they were outraged by that argument,” he said, looking out at the chamber. The arguments from Trump’s three-person defense team, installed just two weeks ago, were less cohesive. Perhaps to his benefit, Castor took the air out of the room after Raskin’s vivid description of Jan 6. with an ambling, and at times contradictory, monologue about the passions of the moment and senators’ love of country. After nearly an hour, he reached a conclusion, saying that as a private citizen, Trump should not be impeached, and that if the Justice Department believed he had done anything wrong, it would be prosecuting him. “There is no opportunity where the president of the United States can run rampant in January at the end of his term and just go away scot free,” Castor said. “The Department of Justice does know what to do with such people.” He argued that Democrats really just wanted to make sure that Trump could not run again. Following him at the podium, Schoen took a more adversarial role. He called Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, who was presiding as the Senate’s president pro tempore in place of Chief Justice John Roberts, a biased judge. Previewing the defense's own presentation expected this week, he said that Trump’s admonition to his supporters on Jan. 6 to “fight like hell” was protected free speech. Schoen derided the managers for hiring a “movie company” to stitch together the most gruesome scenes of the attack as if it were a “blood sport.” But he played his own video presentation of clips of Democratic lawmakers through the years calling for Trump to be impeached, as ominous music played in the background.

Senate agrees trial is constitutional, as Trump consolidates votes for an acquittal

Former US President Donald Trump&nbsp;announced Sunday that he had hired two new lawyers to head his defence team for his historic second impeachment trial.

Lawyers David Schoen and Bruce Castor will head the defence effort in the trial set to begin on February&nbsp;9, Trump's office said in a statement. Schoen had already been helping Trump and advisers prepare for the proceedings, according to the former president's office.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/donald-trumps-impeachment-defense-team-leaves-less-than-two-weeks-before-trial-360411/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, both South Carolina lawyers, have left the defence team in what one person described as a ''mutual decision''&nbsp;that reflected a difference of opinion on the direction of the case.&nbsp;The change injects fresh uncertainty into the makeup and strategy of his defence team.

Trump, who left office January 20, faces trial on a charge that he incited the mob that stormed the US Capitol building in an effort to block his election loss to President Joe Biden.

The trial is historic both because it stems from&nbsp;Trump&nbsp;being impeached a second time during his four years in the White House, and is the first of a former United States president.&nbsp;

Forty-five Senate Republicans backed a failed effort last week to halt Trump’s impeachment trial, in a show of party unity that some cited as a clear sign Trump will not be convicted of inciting insurrection at the Capitol.

The trial, in which&nbsp;Trump&nbsp;faces a charge of "incitement of insurrection" is to begin on February 9.

But with just five Republicans joining all 50 Democrats this week in agreeing that the trial should go forward, it appears unlikely that 17 Republicans would vote against&nbsp;Trump, the minimum number needed to reach the two-thirds threshold for conviction.

Schoen previously represented Trump's former adviser Roger Stone, who was convicted in November 2019 of lying under oath to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump pardoned Stone in December 2020, weeks before leaving the office on January&nbsp;20.

Castor is a former Pennsylvania district attorney known for his decision not to prosecute entertainer Bill Cosby in 2005 after a woman accused Cosby of sexual assault. In 2017, Castor sued Cosby's accuser in the case for defamation, claiming she destroyed his political career in retaliation.

Cosby, 83, is now serving a three-to-10-year sentence in a state prison near Philadelphia after being found guilty in a 2018 trial of drugging and raping a onetime friend at his home in 2004.

Former US President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he had hired two new lawyers to head his defence team for his historic second impeachment trial. Lawyers David Schoen and Bruce Castor will head the defence effort in the trial set to begin on February 9, Trump's office said in a statement.

Former US President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he had hired two new lawyers to head his defence team for his historic second impeachment trial. Lawyers David Schoen and Bruce Castor will head the defence effort in the trial set to begin on February 9, Trump's office said in a statement. Schoen had already been helping Trump and advisers prepare for the proceedings, according to the former president's office. Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, both South Carolina lawyers, have left the defence team in what one person described as a ''mutual decision'' that reflected a difference of opinion on the direction of the case. The change injects fresh uncertainty into the makeup and strategy of his defence team. Trump, who left office January 20, faces trial on a charge that he incited the mob that stormed the US Capitol building in an effort to block his election loss to President Joe Biden. The trial is historic both because it stems from Trump being impeached a second time during his four years in the White House, and is the first of a former United States president. Forty-five Senate Republicans backed a failed effort last week to halt Trump’s impeachment trial, in a show of party unity that some cited as a clear sign Trump will not be convicted of inciting insurrection at the Capitol. The trial, in which Trump faces a charge of "incitement of insurrection" is to begin on February 9. But with just five Republicans joining all 50 Democrats this week in agreeing that the trial should go forward, it appears unlikely that 17 Republicans would vote against Trump, the minimum number needed to reach the two-thirds threshold for conviction. Schoen previously represented Trump's former adviser Roger Stone, who was convicted in November 2019 of lying under oath to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump pardoned Stone in December 2020, weeks before leaving the office on January 20. Castor is a former Pennsylvania district attorney known for his decision not to prosecute entertainer Bill Cosby in 2005 after a woman accused Cosby of sexual assault. In 2017, Castor sued Cosby's accuser in the case for defamation, claiming she destroyed his political career in retaliation. Cosby, 83, is now serving a three-to-10-year sentence in a state prison near Philadelphia after being found guilty in a 2018 trial of drugging and raping a onetime friend at his home in 2004.

Trump names two new lawyers to lead his impeachment defence team in Senate trial

The U.S. senate has put Donald Trump on trial over charges of inciting an insurrection. The trial will begin in 2 weeks. Will Trump be convicted? WION's Molly Gambhir gets you a report.

Gravitas: Will U.S. Senate convict Donald Trump?