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WASHINGTON (AP) – Democrats are using Donald Trump’s upcoming Senate impeachment trial as a political “weapon” to bar the former president from running for re-election and are pursuing an “undemocratic” and unconstitutional case, said Monday the one of his lawyers. night.
Trump faces trial next week on charges he instigated a heart-wrenching and murderous siege on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, when a crowd of loyalists in town for a rally supporting the president stormed the police and took over storming the building. The House passed a single article of impeachment against Trump a week before his departure, A trial would allow Democrats to present evidence against Trump and hold him publicly responsible for the attack.
However, whether a Senate trial is constitutional is a point of contention because Trump is no longer in office and, if convicted, cannot be removed from a post he does not hold. not. The Democrats evoke the dismissal in 1876 of a secretary of the war who had already resigned and the opinions of many jurists. The Senate could vote to bar Trump from federal office if convicted, which is a goal supported by Democrats.
On the eve of expected legal briefs from lawyers for both sides, Trump’s lawyer David Schoen’s appearance on Fox News predicted some of the arguments he plans to make at trial, calling the case unnecessarily divisive, unconstitutional and undemocratic.
“It is also the most misguided legislative move I have seen in my life,” Schoen said.
Trump is the first president in American history to be impeached twice. He was acquitted in a Senate trial last year for his contacts with his Ukrainian counterpart. Impeachment, Schoen said, “is the weapon they tried to use against him.”
The new case was an effort to prevent Trump from running again, Schoen said, “and it’s about as undemocratic as it gets.”
Schoen, a criminal defense and civil rights attorney, and Bruce Castor, a former Pennsylvania County prosecutor, were announced as Trump’s legal team on Sunday evening, a day after it was revealed that the former president had split off from another group of lawyers in what one person described as a mutual decision.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Schoen said he did not intend to argue that Trump lost the election due to fraud, as Trump has repeatedly insisted, and would instead claim that the lawsuit itself is unconstitutional since Trump has already left office and his words were protected by the First Amendment and did not incite a riot.
House Democrats plan to describe what happened on January 6 in detail – an effort to reach out to Senate Republicans who have largely avoided talking about the attack itself and Trump’s role in it. ci, focusing instead on the impeachment trial process. They are expected to play videos and verbally recount the day’s violence in hopes of agitating Republicans, most of whom fled the Senate that day when rioters broke in.
The nine House impeachment officials who will plead the case are also expected to explain how they think Trump’s actions over the past few months led to it and ultimately spurred the insurgents to act.
Their arguments will include a look at Trump’s “prolonged effort” to persuade his supporters to believe his false claims that the election was stolen – and describe how his calls for them to come to Washington and his words immediately before the election. the attack directly caused it.
The mob that stormed into the Capitol as the House and Senate counted the electoral votes not only trashed the building, but repeatedly called out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence, who was in the building to preside over the count.
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Associated Press editor Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
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