Former President Donald Trump has parted ways with his new legal team barely a week ahead of his scheduled impeachment trial in the Senate.
Butch Bowers, a South Carolina lawyer who was expected to play a key role in the trial, left the team along with Deborah Barbier, a lawyer from Columbia, South Carolina.
People familiar with their separation from Mr. Trump described it as a “mutual decision.”
Three other lawyers who were expected to be part of the team have decided to leave as well.
The moves come two days before Mr. Trump is due to submit his first legal filings in the case on Tuesday.
In a statement, Trump adviser Jason Miller said new lawyers will be announced soon.
“We have done much work, but have not made a final decision on our legal team, which will be made shortly,” he said in a statement.
Mr. Miller also criticized Senate Democrats for moving ahead with a trial, set to begin on Feb. 8.
“The Democrats’ efforts to impeach a president who has already left office is totally unconstitutional and so bad for our country,” Mr. Miller said in a statement. “In fact, 45 Senators have already voted that it is unconstitutional.”
In a test vote last week, 45 Republican senators voted against holding the trial for a private citizen.
Mr. Bowers’ hiring had been announced by Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and a Trump ally. The attorney has represented former South Carolina Govs. Mark Sanford and Nikki Haley, and is well-known in GOP circles.
The House impeached Mr. Trump on Jan. 13 for inciting a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when Trump supporters tried to stop Congress from counting the Electoral College results certifying President Biden’s victory.
It would take two-thirds of the Senate to convict Mr. Trump and bar him from holding office again, a threshold that is extremely unlikely.
Longtime Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani has said he won’t be part of the legal team because he spoke at the massive pro-Trump rally on Jan. 6 in Washington, just before the crowd stormed the Capitol.
Addressing reports that Mr. Trump clashed with the legal team over his desire to highlight allegations of election fraud, Sen. Rob Portman, Ohio Republican, said Sunday that such a strategy wouldn’t help the former president in his trial.
Mr. Portman said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that fraud or voting irregularities didn’t occur on a scale large enough “to change the results of the election.”
“We have to move on,” said Mr. Portman, who has announced he won’t run for reelection in 2022. “And Joe Biden is now the duly elected president of the United States. So, if the argument is not going to be made [by Mr. Trump] on issues like constitutionality, which are real issues, and need to be addressed, I think it will not benefit the president.”
Even if Mr. Trump’s actions leading up to the riot were “inexcusable,” Mr. Portman said, the Senate still needs to address the constitutionality of convicting a private citizen in an impeachment trial.
“That sets up a precedent. And I think all former presidents, those alive and those not, could be affected in a negative way,” he said.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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