Donald Trump speaks to a crowd before boarding Air Force One on January 20.
Photo:
Luis M. Alvarez / Associated Press
According to a person familiar with the case, two attorneys who led former President Donald Trump’s defense in his Senate impeachment lawsuit left the legal team just over a week before the trial was due to begin.
Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, two South Carolina attorneys, no longer plan to represent Mr. Trump, the person said Saturday. The decision was mutual, the person said, declining to give a reason for the departure.
The departure leaves Mr Trump in a difficult position with the start of the trial on Feb. 8.
CNN previously reported the departure.
The Democrat-led House voted in January to impeach Trump for a second time, claiming he was encouraging a crowd to storm Congress to prevent lawmakers from certifying President Biden’s election victory. While 10 Republicans joined Democrats to vote to overthrow Mr. Trump in the House, Democrats in the Senate are facing greater opportunities to convince 17 Republicans to vote with them for sentencing.
Mr. Trump has not accepted responsibility for the uprising in the Capitol and has denied wrongdoing.
Trump faces a more complicated path to building a defense team than he did in his initial impeachment trial, when he had the White House Counsel’s Office and a robust personal legal team behind him. His personal attorneys, Jay Sekulow, Jane Raskin and Marty Raskin, made it clear in private that they had no intention of defending him a second time, according to people familiar with the case, as did former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy, Pat Philbin. .
Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at [email protected]
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