Starr, celebrity lawyer Dershowitz join Trump’s defence team

WASHINGTON: Ken Starr, who was at the center of Bill Clinton’s impeachment in the 1990s, and America’s biggest celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz were announced Friday to be joining President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment defence.

The administration has yet to unveil the full team but confirmed that White House counsel Pat Cipollone will be lead lawyer, backed by Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow. Cipollone is the author of the Republican president’s uncompromising strategy to stonewall the Democrats’ impeachment investigation, calling it "partisan and unconstitutional."

But where Cipollone is ultra-discreet, and rarely speaks on the record, Dershowitz and Starr will bring the legal world’s equivalent of rock stardom when the trial begins in earnest on Tuesday.

US media reports said Starr, the special prosecutor in the 1988 Clinton impeachment saga, was joining. He is a hero to many on the right, even if Clinton ultimately was acquitted in the Senate.

And in a statement on his Twitter feed Friday, Dershowitz said he would "present oral arguments at the Senate trial to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal."

His past clients include Epstein, who killed himself in his New York jail cell last August, and other wealthy men embroiled in notorious rape cases -- film director Roman Polanski and former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson.

Dershowitz’s most famous case was the successful defence of former NFL football star O.J. Simpson, whose televised 1995 murder trial riveted the nation. In the Senate, Dershowitz, who teaches at Harvard University, says he’ll be pursuing loftier matters.

"He believes the issues at stake go to the heart of our enduring Constitution," the Twitter statement said. Another high-powered player on Cipollone’s team will be Sekulow, a stalwart in the White House pushback against a two-year probe by special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump’s controversial dealings with Russia.

As a veteran of Supreme Court cases and a big name on the right-wing evangelical Christian scene, he won’t be dazzled by the bright lights of Washington’s ultimate fight. Rounding off the roster will be Robert Ray, another figure from the investigations into president Bill Clinton that rocked Washington in the 1990s, US media reported.

Trump has been impeached by the House of Representatives on accusations that he abused his office to try and force Ukraine into digging up dirt on leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. He was also impeached for obstructing Congress.

But the White House enters the Senate trial with a massive advantage: Trump’s Republicans have 53 of the 100 seats and the party is in lockstep. The majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, loyally echoes Trump’s claim that the impeachment is a political hit job.

As a man who has been fighting legal battles -- including rape allegations, multiple real estate disputes, and bankruptcy -- for decades, Trump is no stranger to colorful lawyers.

His former longtime attorney Michael Cohen is serving a three-year prison sentence and has turned on his old boss. Before going behind bars for a variety of crimes last year, Cohen called Trump a "con man" and a "cheat."

Where Cohen left off, an even bigger firebrand, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, stepped in to serve as attorney and roving political fixer.

Giuliani’s relentless attempts to prove conspiracy theories around Biden’s family activities in Ukraine are interwoven with the whole impeachment case against Trump. Although Giuliani is not a government employee, he has traveled to Ukraine to lead the search for dirt on Biden. And the outspoken, irascible former federal prosecutor who was in charge of New York on 9/11, has pushed to be allowed in on the Senate impeachment trial team. A wary White House has shut the door.