President Trump’s impeachment team will include two former independent counsels, Ken Starr and Robert Ray, and constitutional law professor Alan Dershowitz.
The team will be led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and will include Jay Sekulow, a personal attorney to the president. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi will also join the president’s defense, according to one report, along with longtime Trump counsel Jane Raskin, adding two women to the team.
Dershowitz, 81, shared a statement this morning written in the third person that read: “Professor Dershowitz will present oral arguments at the Senate trial to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal. While Professor Dershowitz is non partisan when it comes to the Constitution — he opposed the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and voted for Hillary Clinton — he believes the issues at stake go to the heart of our enduring Constitution. He is participating in this impeachment trial to defend the integrity of the Constitution and to prevent the creation of a dangerous constitutional precedent.”
Starr, 73, who in December said impeachment was “absolutely” an effort to overthrow the president, led the investigation into President Bill Clinton, the second U.S. president to be impeached. As independent counsel, he also led the Whitewater investigation and was succeeded in the role by Ray, 59.
Ray and Dershowitz share checkered histories. Ray was charged with stalking in 2006, while Dershowitz is dogged by his longstanding ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender for whom Dershowitz helped arrange a plea deal in 2008.
“Establishment Republicans” stopped Dershowitz from testifying in the House, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said in December, citing “consternation” over Epstein, who died in jail after an arrest on separate charges last year. “He would have carved them up.”
“I think that was a mistake,” Gaetz said at the time. “I don’t think there is anyone we could put in that chair better than Alan Dershowitz. There’s a decent chance Dershowitz would have been the professor of some of the Democrat witnesses.”
