(Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
Last weekend, Donald Trump replaced his entire impeachment legal team, bringing in attorneys David Schoen and Bruce Castor, Jr to represent him at next week’s hearing. According to the New York Times, the split was due in part to his prior counsel’s failure to make the former president’s case to the most important jury of all: “Mr. Trump prefers lawyers who are eager to appear on television to say that he never did anything wrong.”
Naturally Schoen raced to remedy the deficiency with an appearance last night on Sean Hannity’s program, where he derided the entire impeachment as both illegal and bad for the country.
“Besides the fact that this process is completely unconstitutional this is a very, very dangerous road to take with respect to the First Amendment, putting at risk any passionate political speaker, which is against everything we believe in this country,” Schoen said. This is not the position that he’s taken with regard to “passionate” pro-Palestinian speakers on American college campuses, but nevertheless.
“I think it’s also the most ill-advised legislative action that I’ve seen in my lifetime,” he intoned somberly to the television host who opened the segment with a 12-year-old quote from Barack Obama and a suggestion that Democrats want to burn down American cities. “It is tearing the country apart at a time when we don’t need anything like that.”
“He condemned violence at all times. Read the words of his speech. It calls for peacefulness,” Schoen continued, omitting to mention the part where the former president said “We fight. We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” before exhorting the crowd to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” and “try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
Perhaps that’s the reason the former president’s lawyer doesn’t want footage of the riot aired at the impeachment hearing, complaining to Hannity that the rioters whom Trump summoned via multiple tweets, addressed in person, and whose venue was coordinated with members of his own campaign were in no wise inspired by the president’s rhetoric.
“This has nothing to do with President Trump and the country doesn’t need to just watch videos of riots and unrest,” Schoen said. “We need to heal now. We need to move forward.”
Then he finished up by accusing Democrats of being biased against Trump and threatening to call them as witnesses.
“Can you imagine any American citizen considering to be in a trial where the judge and jury has already announced publicly that the defendant must be convicted in this case?” Schoen said indignantly, ignoring last week’s vote where 45 Republicans passed judgment on the president’s claim that the entire process is unconstitutional. “It undercuts democracy. How could you possibly have a fair trial? Senator Schumer promised a fair and full trial. You can’t when you know that they are biased going in.”
And if there’s one thing Sean Hannity can’t stand, it’s political bias!
But David Schoen knows whose fault this is. That’s right, it’s Joe Biden’s job to order Chuck Schumer to shut this whole thing down.
“President Biden missed a great opportunity to be a statesman and demand that this thing be called off,” he huffed.
It’s gonna be a shitshow. And we’re off to a great start.
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.