Donald Trump recruits OJ Simpson’s defence lawyer

Donald Trump turbocharges defence team with high-profile lawyers including OJ Simpson’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr.

Donald Trump has turbocharged his impeachment defence team with high-profile lawyers including Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr before his trial begins in the Senatenext week.

Mr Dershowitz is best-known for defending OJ Simpson, the American football star acquitted of murdering his wife and her lover. Mr Starr built the case for impeaching President Clinton for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Both lawyers have appeared on television vigorously defending Mr Trump over his impeachment for coercing Ukraine to help him politically and also over allegations of using Russian help in the 2016 election. Their appointment adds not only vital legal knowledge but also the TV experience felt to be lacking in the White House team, which is important to swaying public opinion.

However, both carry baggage that could hand ammunition to Mr Trump’s enemies: Mr Dershowitz, 81, has become embroiled in the Jeffrey Epstein case and faces allegations of abuse from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of the financier’s victims; Mr Starr, 73, resigned as chancellor of Baylor University in Texas after being accused of mishandling numerous cases of sexual assault by elite student athletes.

Mr Trump also recruited Robert Ray, 59, who succeeded Mr Starr as independent counsel in the Whitewater affair involving Mr Clinton.

The appointments signal that the White House has given up on its strategy of trying to persuade Republican senators to bring a quick end to the trial and is digging in for a longer process played out on television.

It also shows that the president has moved on from the partisan political defence made by his strongest supporters in the House of Representatives. Mr Trump’s new team of battle-hardened lawyers will mount a strong defence against the charges grounded in legal argument, something that was notably lacking in the House.

Ms Lewinsky, 46, led astonishment at the choices, tweeting on Friday: “This is definitely an ‘are you f***ing kidding me?’ kinda day.”

A team of showman lawyers may also present a challenge to John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court who has been sworn in to act as presiding judge of the impeachment trial.

Mr Roberts has to enforce a set of “decorum guidelines” that include a ban on phones and other electronic devices, and an order not to speak while the case is being presented.

The judge, 64, was appointed to the country’s top court during the presidency of George W Bush and prizes his image of impartiality. However, he has already been put in an invidious position by the oath he asked senators to take to “do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws”.

Many have already made clear their feelings on impeachment but there is no penalty of perjury set down in the very thin constitutional rules for a trial of the president.

Mr Roberts is expected to take a light-touch approach to his role, taking his cue from William Rehnquist, his predecessor as chief justice, who presided at the Clinton trial. He knows if he makes a ruling it can be challenged and overturned on a simple majority vote of the senators.

Mr Roberts has already had a run-in with Mr Trump and will be keen to avoid anything that could damage the authority of his court. In a public riposte to the president last November he said that America did “not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges” but an independent judiciary, which was “something we should all be thankful for”.

The Times