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Trump Impeachment Lawyer: Stolen Election Claims Wonât Be Brought Up During Trial
âȘ An attorney for former President Donald Trump said he wonât bring up claims about election fraud while defending the former president during the upcoming impeachment trial…
âThere are plenty of questions about how the election was conducted throughout the country, but thatâs for a different forum, and I donât believe thatâs important to litigate in the Senate trial because you donât need it,â attorney Bruce Castor told KYW News Radio Philadelphia. âPresident Trump has plenty to win with what he has.â
Castor also pushed back against reports that Trump parted ways with his initial legal team about whether they would advance his claims about election fraud.
âI donât know where people got that notion that was some sort of litmus test to get to defend the president, because as you saw from the document I filed, which had to be approved by the president personally, there isnât anything in there about the election being stolen,â Castor said.
Castor and fellow Trump lawyer David Schoen filed a response to House Democratic impeachment managers on Feb. 2, arguing that the impeachment trial is unconstitutional because Trump doesnât currently hold office. They also argued that Trump has a First Amendment right to express his views about the accuracy of the election results.
Democrats argued that Trumpâs speech wasnât constitutionally protected and said it incited an insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
âJust because somebody gave a speech and people got excited, it doesnât mean itâs the speechmakerâs faultâitâs the people who got excited and did what they know is wrong,â Castor said in pushing back against Democrats, referring to Trumpâs remarks to a crowd on Jan. 6.
In the interview, he avoided detailing his arguments but stressed that Trump has plenty of precedents to side with.
âThere are statutes that deal with incitement to riot, and itâs not even close that the president engaged in what would be considered criminal conduct,â he said, according to Radio.com. âThen thereâs a test called the Brandenburg test set down by the Supreme Court. I analyzed that at length, and that isnât even close to met. I donât believe thereâs a chance in the world theyâre going to be able to demonstrate he committed those crimes, or even anything approaching them.
âThe president deplores the violence at the Capitol, and those people should be punished, aggressively, as I would have done as if I was the DA and they did it at the Montgomery County courthouse. But just because somebody gave a speech and people got excited, it doesnât mean itâs the speechmakerâs fault. Itâs the people who got excited and did what they know is wrong.â
Based on a vote last weekâin which 45 Republican senators rejected holding an impeachment trial outrightâit appears unlikely that Trump will be convicted. Many Republican senators agreed that it would be unconstitutional to convict a former president who doesnât hold office. At least 17 Republican senators would have to join Democrats to convict a president in a Senate trial.
Democrats, meanwhile, argued in their Feb. 2 brief that Trump deserves a conviction because he shouldnât be able to hold office in the future.
Trumpâs impeachment trial is scheduled to begin the week of Feb. 8. âȘ
