Trump Impeachment Team for Trial to Include Ken Starr, Alan Dershowitz

White House counsel Pat Cipollone will lead the president’s defense

President Trump finalized his legal team for the Senate impeachment trial, choosing a group of attorneys with the household name recognition and TV experience he values, while overlooking their links to past and continuing controversies, a tradeoff that Mr. Trump has often made.

Mr. Trump filled out his team on Friday by increasing the total number of attorneys to nine from four who will defend him against two charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The most controversial selections were constitutional-law professor Alan Dershowitz and former Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.

He also added Robert Ray, who succeeded Mr. Starr in the broad Whitewater inquiry; Jane Raskin, a veteran of Mr. Trump’s private legal team during Robert Mueller’s probe; and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has appeared frequently on Fox News and joined the White House as an impeachment aide in November.

The five will serve in an assisting role to White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, a personal lawyer for Mr. Trump. White House lawyers Patrick Philbin and Mike Purpura also have been working on impeachment issues for the president. All nine attorneys may address lawmakers as the White House presents its case to the Senate, but those roles hadn’t yet been finalized, a White House official said.

Tensions have emerged in recent weeks between House and Senate Republicans over whether to include some of Mr. Trump’s staunchest defenders from the House in the impeachment team. No House members were included on Friday.

Mr. Dershowitz would address the constitutional issues with the impeachment charges, say people familiar with the matter. He is among the most high-profile attorneys in the country, having helped defend O.J. Simpson during his trial on murder charges in the 1990s.

Read the rest from the WSJ HERE.

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