Bruce Castor Jr., the lawyer for the former US president on the proceedings, said it would be foolish and insane to investigate the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in a Senate impeachment trial against Donald Trump.
Speaking to Reuters, the lawyer stressed that Trump, who has so far objected to the election results on the grounds that the elections were rigged, had not pressured him to make those statements.
It would be foolish and insane to insert the election issue into a winning process
Castor said. He and fellow attorney, David Schwen, will represent the former president in the Senate’s Constitutional Prosecution office beginning February 9.
Trump’s advocates say the Senate has no authority to try a constitutionally accused president who has already left office. Castor says this will be the cornerstone of their argument.
Democrats in the House of Representatives argued Monday that Trump directed a crowd of his followers into the Washington Congressional building like a “loaded cannon,” endangering the lives of all lawmakers.
The impeachment initiators said against Donald Trump that the former president’s inflammatory speech and messages to his community caused unrest on January 6, when hundreds of fans surrounded the Capitol after the outgoing Republican president’s speech and killed five during the unrest.
If the Senate condemns Trump, he may lose his privileges as a former president and not run for president again. At least 17 Republican politicians in the Senate must support the president’s conviction because the Democrats in the Senate do not have a majority in favor of it.