Donald Trump's lawyer rubbished for rambling opening remarks in impeachment trial

Lawyers Bruce Castor and David Schoen have only had a few days to prepare their defence of Donald Trump for his impeachment trial.

And their opening argument has been so poorly received that even Mr Trump's friends and allies are trashing it.

The opening remarks from Mr Castor was panned by top lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who represented Mr Trump in his last impeachment.

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"I have no idea what he's doing. I have no idea why he's saying what he's saying," Mr Dershowitz told Newsmax.

"C'mon, the American people are entitled to an argument, a constitutional argument."

Mr Castor and Mr Schoen joined Mr Trump's legal team on January 31, but their defence appeared to be even more last minute.

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The pair had planned to speak in a different order, but changed their strategy moments before.

"I'll be quite frank with you," Mr Castor said.

"We changed what we were going to do on account that we thought that the House managers' presentation was well done."

In his opening remarks, he castigated Republican senator Ben Sasse for supporting impeachment, suggesting his vote would be unpopular in his home state of Nebraska.

His argument against convicted is largely premised on the idea that a president cannot be removed once he leaves office.

"After he's out of office, you go and arrest him," Mr Castor said.

"There is no opportunity where the President of the United States can run rampant in January at the end of his term and go away Scott-free."

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Mr Trump has not been criminally charged over the January 6 Capitol riots, but he is under investigation.

Mr Castor's long, rambling statement was cited by Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted last week that Mr Trump's impeachment was unconstitutional then changed his mind this morning.

"If you listen to it, it speaks for itself. It was disorganised, random. They talked about many things, but they didn't talk about the issue at hand," Mr Cassidy said.

"If I'm an impartial juror trying to make a decision based on the facts as presented on this issue, then the House managers did a much better job."

CNN reported Mr Trump himself was angry with the performance of his legal team.

Mr Castor is hardly a novice lawyer, having served in powerful prosecutor positions in Pennsylvania.

He famously declined to prosecute Bill Cosby for sexual assault when he was serving as Montgomery County District Attorney in 2005.

He would later serve as Pennsylvania's solicitor-general and briefly as acting attorney-general.

One of Mr Trump's other lawyers sued the then-president last year.

Michael T. van der Veen filed a lawsuit in federal court in August suing Mr Trump as well as the head of the US Postal Service over the issue of mail-in ballots.

Mr van der Veen argued Mr Trump's changes to Postal Service policy made it harder for people to vote.

The case was dismissed in November, after the election itself.

Mr Trump's legal team was very hastily assembled, after five lawyers quit on January 31.

But running an impeachment defence is a tricky task for even the most capable of lawyers.

Impeachment trials don't work like a regular courtroom. The senators are not only the jury, but the people tasked with determining the rules of the trial.

Not only that, but impeachment trials are incredibly rare. Only a handful of lawyers in the United States have participated in one, and none of them are currently on Mr Trump's legal team.

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