While Mr. Trump has argued for it, his lawyers will instead echo the argument of many Republicans that the impeachment trial of a former president is unconstitutional.<\/b>
\nThe new legal team that former President Donald J. Trump has brought in for his impeachment trial next week is unlikely to focus his defense on his baseless claims of widespread election fraud and instead question whether the trial is even constitutional since he is no longer president, people close to the team said on Monday. Several Trump advisers have told the former president that using his election claims as a defense for his role in the mob attack on the Capitol last month is unwise, according to a person close to the new lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce L. Castor Jr. The person said the former president\u2019s advisers did not expect that it would be part of the arguments they make before the Senate. Mr. Schoen, an Atlanta-based criminal defense lawyer, and Mr. Castor, a former district attorney in Pennsylvania, replaced Butch Bowers and four other lawyers working with him after they parted ways with the former president. A person close to Mr. Trump said there was disagreement about the approach to strategy and that the former president had no \u201cchemistry\u201d with Mr. Bowers, a South Carolina lawyer recommended to him by Senator Lindsey Graham, one of his most loyal supporters. A second person close to Mr. Trump said that Mr. Bowers seemed \u201coverwhelmed\u201d by the case. The new team has to file a brief with the Senate on Tuesday that will provide a first glimpse of how they plan to defend the former president. Mr. Trump never had an opportunity to offer a defense in his House impeachment trial because of the speed with which it was conducted. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, warned Mr. Trump\u2019s team on Monday to stay away from rehashing his inflated grievances and debunked theories about election fraud. Better, he said, to focus on rebutting the particulars of the House\u2019s \u201cincitement of insurrection\u201d charge. \u201cIt\u2019s really not material,\u201d Mr. Cornyn told reporters in the Capitol of Mr. Trump\u2019s repeated claims. \u201cAs much as there might be a temptation to bring in other matters, I think it would be a disservice to the president\u2019s own defense to get bogged down in things that really aren\u2019t before the Senate.\u201d Many Republicans on Capitol Hill expect the defense team to at least partly rely on their argument that holding a trial of a former president is unconstitutional. People close to the Trump legal team said that would be a main avenue of defense. The constitutional debate around that issue \u2014 many scholars disagree, citing the fact that the Senate has tried a former official in the past \u2014 will figure significantly in the trial. In preparation, the Senate has explicitly asked both sides to address in their written briefs \u201cwhether Donald John Trump is subject to the jurisdiction of a court of impeachment for acts committed as president of the United States, notwithstanding the expiration of his term in said office.\u201d The House managers are set to file their own, more detailed legal brief on Tuesday. The document should offer the first comprehensive road map of their argument that Mr. Trump sowed baseless claims of election fraud, summoned his supporters to Washington and then directly provoked them to confront Congress as it met in the Capitol to certify his election loss. The brief will also include an argument in favor of holding the trial, with the managers prepared to argue that the framers of the Constitution intended impeachment to apply to officials who had committed offenses while in office. A similar document from Mr. Trump\u2019s team to expand on their initial pleading is due next week before the trial begins on Feb.9. Some around the former president have suggested arguing against the central accusation in the impeachment article \u2014 that he incited an insurrection \u2014 and instead focusing more closely on process issues like the constitutionality of the case. While the lawyers were just named, Mr. Schoen has been speaking to Mr. Trump and others around him in an informal capacity for several days, people close to the former president said. Mr. Schoen has represented a range of clients, like mobsters and Mr. Trump\u2019s longtime adviser Roger J. Stone Jr. Mr. Castor is best known for reaching a deal not to prosecute Bill Cosby for sexual assault when he was the district attorney of Montgomery County, Pa. He also briefly served as the state\u2019s acting attorney general. Mr. Castor\u2019s cousin is Stephen R. Castor, the congressional investigator who battled Democrats over Mr. Trump\u2019s attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joseph R. Biden Jr. when he was preparing to run against him. A person familiar with the discussions said that Stephen Castor had recommended his cousin to the former president. It is unclear how close the Castor cousins are. Stephen Castor is a veteran of some of Capitol Hill\u2019s most fiercely partisan oversight disputes in the past decade. He worked on investigations into the Obama administration\u2019s handling of an attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, and a gun trafficking program known as Operation Fast and Furious. In the meantime, the nine House impeachment managers have all but gone underground in recent days, favoring private trial preparations to the kind of TV interviews and other public appearances often used in Washington to try to shift public opinion. Democratic leaders are trying to carry out both the president\u2019s lengthy legislative agenda and a major impeachment trial of his predecessor more or less simultaneously. The decision to maintain a low profile was apparently driven by the desire to divert as little attention as possible from Mr. Biden\u2019s push for coronavirus relief legislation, the priority issue of his agenda.<\/p>\n