Donald Trump’s legal team will present his defense on Friday in a Senate impeachment trial that could wrap up with a vote this weekend on whether to convict or acquit the former president.
Trump’s lawyers met late on Thursday with some GOP senators to discuss the procedural aspects of their case. The meeting followed two days of arguments by House Democratic impeachment managers who showed dramatic video of the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by hundreds of Trump supporters.
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Trump’s lawyers will make the case that in spite of carefully woven arguments by impeachment managers that the former president knowingly caused the attack, he is not to blame and should be acquitted.
Lawyers David Schoen and Bruce Castor signaled they may wrap their case quickly. While they are allowed 16 hours over two days, they will likely complete their arguments today.
“We will end either tomorrow or Saturday,” Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said.
Republicans who met with Trump’s lawyers want them to deliver a direct rebuttal rather than the meandering presentation from Castor they panned on Tuesday.
“I would hope they would be concise and clear and walk through the facts,” Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, said.
Trump is unlikely to be convicted, which takes a Senate supermajority with 17 Republican votes.
Republicans said the presentation from Democrats failed to meet the burden of proof that Trump incited the riot with his words at a speech ahead of the rally and in tweets and speeches in the weeks following the Nov. 3 election.
“I guarantee you all 100 senators in that chamber have stood on the stump and said, ‘We need to fight’ or ‘Fight like hell,’” Cruz said.
