Charles J. Cooper, a stalwart of the conservative legal establishment, said that Republicans were wrong to assert that it is unconstitutional for a former president to be tried for impeachable offenses. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Mr. Trump’s legal team must defend him against articles of impeachment alleging abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Credit... President Trump has expanded his legal team in hopes of securing a quick acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial.
The process-focused argument is seen by some as a potential escape route for Republicans who have refused to defend Trump’s conduct ahead of the Capitol riot but are reluctant to publicly cross their former party leader, let alone vote to convict him in an impeachment trial. Democrats reject that argument.
Unlike his first impeachment trial, during which he had an army of lawyers defending him before the Senate, Mr. Trump's legal team for the historic proceedings is much smaller and was thrown together in haste days before the trial kicked off.
Michael Cohen (lawyer)Michael CohenCohen in 2019BornMichael Dean Cohen August 25, 1966 Lawrence, New York, U.S.EducationAmerican University (BA) Cooley Law School (JD)Political partyDemocratic (before 2002, 2004–2017, 2018–present) Republican (2002–2004, 2017–2018)10 more rows
Impeachment inquiry against Donald TrumpProponentsNancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House of Representatives) Adam Schiff (Chair of the House Intelligence Committee) Jerry Nadler (Chair of the House Judiciary Committee)DateSeptember 24 – December 3, 2019 (2 months, 1 week and 2 days)16 more rows
The United States Constitution provides that the House of Representatives "shall have the sole Power of Impeachment" (Article I, section 2) and "the Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments …
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
1 Overview. Article II, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
A lifetime appointment comes with some caveats. Supreme Court justices serve for life, unless they resign or are impeached and removed from office. The reason for their lifetime tenure is ostensibly to enable them to make decisions free from any pressure by the executive or legislative branches of government.
Schoen, an Orthodox Jew, initially requested the impeachment trial break after sundown Friday and all day Saturday to observe the Sabbath. Senate leaders were prepared to honor the request, but it was dropped before a resolution detailing the parameters of the proceedings was taken up and passed by the Senate.
Representing the former president in last year's trial, which ended with his acquittal by the Senate, was a cadre of well-known attorneys that included White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Jay Sekulow , Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and former independent counsel Ken Starr, among others.
Castor testified as a witness for the defense during a pre-trial hearing to Cosby's trial in 2016. The first member of Mr. Trump's legal team to address senators, he raised eyebrows with his meandering and at times confusing presentation that seldom touched on the issue of whether the Senate had the authority to try a former president.
Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana called Mr. Trump's team "disorganized," while Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas said Castor took too long to address the question of the trial's constitutionality.
Senate as it begins the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, on February 9, 2021. U.S. Senate TV/Handout via Reuters. Castor is the former district attorney of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, serving from 2000 to 2008. He also served as the Pennsylvania solicitor general ...
He is well known for declining to prosecute comedian Bill Cosby in 2005 after Temple University employee Andrea Constand accused Cosby of sexually assaulting her in his home. Castor testified as a witness ...
In the 1980s, Ms. Raskin worked for William F. Weld, an assistant attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, who later became the governor of Massachusetts and is now running a quixotic campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
A former federal prosecutor, Mr. Ray had planned to indict Mr. Clinton when he left office for the same crimes considered during the impeachment. But Mr. Ray and Mr. Clinton struck a deal that prevented Mr. Clinton from being prosecuted in return for surrendering his law license and paying a $25,000 fine.
Pam Bondi, who served as Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019, has been considered a rising Republican star. When she endorsed Mr. Trump for president in 2016, she said they had been friends for years.
President Trump has expanded his legal team in hopes of securing a quick acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial. The lawyers he has enlisted include frequent guests on Fox News and former independent counsels who investigated President Bill Clinton. Together, they must maintain Mr. Trump’s support in the Senate while arguing his case ...
Two trial lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce Castor Jr., will head the legal team defending Trump in the Senate against the charge that he incited the deadly invasion of the U.S.
Multiple outlets reported that Trump’s previous impeachment lawyers departed after he asked them to focus on his unfounded election fraud claims. U.S President Donald Trump returns to the White House after news media declared Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden to be the winner of the 2020 U.S.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed that if Trump is convicted, there will be another vote to ban him from running for president ever again. But if the 45 GOP senators who voted to dismiss the trial ultimately move to acquit Trump, Democrats will fall far short of the 67 votes required to convict.
The impeachment trial is set to begin Feb. 9, nearly three weeks after Trump left the White House to make way for Biden. Last week, 45 Republican senators voted in support of a motion declaring it unconstitutional to hold a trial to convict a president who has left office — a view embraced by Trump’s new legal team.
Last June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted Cosby an appeal. Castor is the cousin of Stephen Castor, a House Republican staff lawyer involved with Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, according to The New York Times. Stephen Castor recommended his cousin to Trump for his second impeachment defense team, according to the Times.
The hiring of Schoen, a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer who previously represented Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone, and Castor, a former district attorney known for declining to prosecute Bill Cosby on sexual assault charges, was announced Sunday in a press release from Trump’s office.
Schoen, meanwhile, is connected to Trump through his representa tion of Republican operative Roger Stone in an appeal of his criminal conviction. Stone in 2019 had been charged with counts of obstruction, false statements and witness tampering as part of then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
In an opinion piece posted on The Wall Street Journal’s website, the lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, who is closely allied with top Republicans in Congress, dismissed as illogical the claim that it is unconstitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a former president.
Charles J. Cooper, a stalwart of the conservative legal establishment, said that Republicans were wrong to assert that it is unconstitutional for a former president to be tried for impeachable offenses.
But Mr. Cooper remained in private practice, becoming the lawyer for Mr. Sessions as he was enmeshed in controversy related to the Russia investigation. In the second half of the Trump presidency, Mr. Cooper represented Mr. Bolton and his deputy, Charles Kupperman, in the first impeachment trial of Mr. Trump.
It could provide cover to Republican senators open to convicting Mr. Trump who were caught off guard by last month’s vote, forced by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, to effectively dismiss the case as unconstitutional.
Many legal scholars disagree, and the Senate has previously held an impeachment trial of a former official — though never a former president.
In 2010, when the Republican National Lawyers Association named him the Republican lawyer of the year, there were three speakers for Mr. Cooper: Mr. Bolton ; the head of the N.R.A., Wayne LaPierre; and Ed Meese, an attorney general under Ronald Reagan who was considered among the most conservative in the department’s history.
Trump in his impeachment trial, asserting that an ex-president can indeed be tried for high crimes and misdemeanors.