Over the weekend, Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said he won’t be a part of Trump’s legal team for the impeachment trial in the Senate.
“Because I gave an earlier speech at the rally, I am a witness and therefore unable to participate in court or in the Senate chamber,” Giuliani said.
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According to The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, Giuliani may not have a choice since he appears to be the only lawyer who is willing to defend Donald Trump in the Senate.
“Here’s the problem: Trump currently has no lawyers on impeachment who can carry the effort,” Haberman wrote. “And he has a relationship with Giuliani. So let’s see where we are in a few days.”
Rebecca Ballhaus from the Wall Street Journal responded to Haberman’s tweet with some reporting of her own, adding “some allies have also told Trump that he will need to take some responsibility for inciting the riot if he wants a serious lawyer to defend him, which he has indicated he doesn’t want to do.”
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This may be disastrous for Trump. Republican strategist Karl Rove believes that if Trump is represented by Giuliani in the Senate then it increase the chances that he will get convicted.
“I think it’s all going to boil down to what the president’s defense is,” Rove said. A Giuliani defense “raises the likelihood of more than 17 Republicans voting for conviction.”
The election fraud argument, Rove noted on Sunday, “has been rejected by over 50 courts,” including some Trump appointees.
Giuliani told ABC News that he was prepared to argue that Donald Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud did not constitute incitement to violence because the widely-debunked claims are true.
