Donald Trump names two lawyers to impeachment defence team

Former US President Donald Trump has named two lawyers to his impeachment defence team, one day after it was revealed that the former president had parted ways with an earlier set of legal representatives.

The two lawyers representing him will be David Schoen, an Alabama attorney, and Bruce Castor, a former prosecutor in Pennsylvania.

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Mr Trump's team revealed at the weekend that several South Carolina lawyers who were set to represent him at the trial starting next week were no longer participating.

Mr Trump, the first president in American history to be impeached twice, is set to stand trial in the Senate on a charge that he incited his supporters to storm Congress on January 6 as politcians met to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Republicans and Trump aides have made clear that they intend to make a simple argument in the trial: Mr Trump’s trial is unconstitutional because he is no longer in office. Legal scholars say there is no bar to an impeachment trial despite Mr Trump having left the White House.

“The Democrats’ efforts to impeach a president who has already left office is totally unconstitutional and so bad for our country," Trump adviser Jason Miller has said.