BBC: Trump impeachment unlikely despite loss of legal team members

By BBN Staff: Several members of former United States President Donald Trump’s legal team have left him ahead of his impending Senate trial; however, his conviction is still unlikely, reports the BBC.

Trump, the only US President in history to ever be impeached twice, is accused of exciting a riot at the US Capitol on January 6, in which five people, including a police officer, died. Ahead of the February 8 insurrection trial, attorneys Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier left Trump’s legal team. Greg Harris and Johnny Gasser, two former federal prosecutors from South Carolina, also reportedly left the team, saying that they were unwilling to defend Trump on the basis of alleged election fraud.

The BBC notes that, while it is unclear who will be defending him going forward, Trump’s conviction is unlikely because 45 out of 50 Senate Republicans have already voted to consider stopping the trial before it even started on the grounds that presidents cannot face impeachment trials once they have left office.

“It would take 17 Republican senators breaking ranks and voting alongside the 50 Democrats to convict the president, potentially preventing him from ever running for federal office again,” the BBC said.

The violence erupted at the US Capitol during the ceremonial counting of the votes to confirm President Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump had told supporters to “fight like hell,” causing hundreds of armed protestors to storm the capitol building, destroy property and get into altercations with law enforcement. During the uprising, a Capitol police officer was brutally beaten with a fire extinguisher and died of his injuries later on.

The chaos eventually subsided when Trump released a short video calling on protestors to go home.

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