Paul Begala, a former adviser to President Clinton, tweeted during the opening arguments of former President Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial that Trump is represented by “the law firm Meandering & Furious.”
“Trump is apparently being represented by the law firm of Meandering & Furious,” he posted on Monday as Trump’s defense spoke in the upper chamber.
The leaders of Trump’s legal team Bruce Castor and David Schoen both spoke during opening arguments in his Senate trial on Monday afternoon.
Castor took to the podium first, starting by saying that the riots at the Capitol on Jan. 6 that resulted in five deaths had to be “vigorously” denounced.
His defense of the former president, which lasted almost 50 minutes, revolved around claims that the impeachment was solely political to help Democrats not to face Trump as a candidate again.
“Let’s understand why we’re really here,” Castor said. “We’re really here because the majority of the House of Representatives does not want to face Donald Trump as a political candidate in the future.”
Castor’s speech received criticism from Republican senators and lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who defended Trump in his first impeachment trial.
“There is no argument. I have no idea what he’s doing. I have no idea why he’s saying what he’s saying,” Dershowitz, an opinion contributor for The Hill, told Newsmax.
Schoen spoke afterward for more than an hour and argued, sometimes raising his voice, that the Senate could not constitutionally convict Trump as a former president because the penalty for conviction was removing him from office.
He countered the House impeachment team’s argument that a conviction was necessary in order to obtain unity in the country, saying, “our nation cannot possibly heal with it.”
“With this trial, you will open up new and bigger wounds across the nation, for a great many Americans see this process for exactly what it is, a chance by a group of partisan politicians, seeking to eliminate Donald Trump from the American political scene and seeking to disenfranchise 74 million plus American voters, and those who dare to share their political beliefs and vision of America,” Schoen said.
The Senate ultimately ruled that Trump’s second Senate trial was constitutional, with six Republicans agreeing.
Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Pat Toomey (Pa.) sided with Democrats that the trial could legally continue.