Chris Wallace questioned the roster chosen by President Trump to lead his legal defense in the Senate impeachment trial.
On Friday, the White House announced its legal team for the pending impeachment trial, which included White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, longtime Trump counsel Jane Raskin, professor Alan Dershowitz, and former independent counsels Robert Ray and Ken Starr.
During an appearance on America’s Newsroom, Wallace suggested that some of the bigger names on Trump’s roster may have decided to join the team for their personal gain. He questioned whether they had decided to represent the president to build their egos.
“The chief counsel for the president, Pat Cipollone, is going to be leading the team,” Wallace explained. “If I were he, I would not be particularly pleased with the team that the president has assembled. A lot of them, people who appear on television as defenders of the president.”
He added: “When you’ve got Alan Dershowitz already issuing a press release about what role he’s going to play, you wonder: Is this a team that is going to be cohesive and take orders from the lead guy or are these a bunch of people who each have their own ax to grind and their own ego to fill?”
Wallace noted that he believes Cipollone is a “very good lawyer.” The Fox News Sunday host claimed that he does not think that Cipollone would have picked the television-regulars to be on his team.
“I think [Trump] absolutely signed off on all these people. I’m not sure Pat Cipollone would have picked all these people to be part of his team,” Wallace said.
Several others have joined Wallace in questioning Trump’s legal roster, including Monica Lewinsky. She ripped the decision to place Starr, who led the prosecution during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, on the legal team, tweeting, “This is definitely an ‘are you f—ing kidding me?’ kinda day.”
