Ken Starr, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Ray join Trump's impeachment defense team
Former Independent Counsel Ken Starr, attorney Alan Dershowitz and former federal prosecutor Robert Ray have been added to President Trump's impeachment defense team for the Senate trial.
President Trump has locked down the defense team that will be representing him during his impeachment trial.
The legal team is made up of several top White House attorneys, with an administration official telling Fox News that other lawyers could cycle through or be on the floor in a support capacity during the Senate trial.
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Here are the attorneys that Fox News has learned will make up Trump’s defense:
Pat Cipollone
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone exits the U.S. Capitol after meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in December. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, will take the helm in commanding Trump’s defense. He was named to the post in October 2018 but has known the president for years. He represented Trump during his tenure as a partner at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis and helped Trump prepare for the 2016 presidential debates.
Despite joining the administration in 2018, Cipollone is no stranger to government work – having worked at the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr during George H.W. Bush's administration.
Cipollone has also played a key role in defending Trump during the House’s impeachment inquiry that centered on the president’s July phone call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky. During the call, Trump urged Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings in the eastern European nation.
As White House counsel, Cipollone advised Trump to release the memo of the call July phone call with Zelensky and he also penned an eight-page note to House Democrats asserting that the White House would not cooperate with the congressional impeachment inquiry.
His advice to Trump fits with Cipplone’s beliefs in executive privilege and that the president can shield witnesses and documents from Congress.
Jay Sekulow
Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow was heavily involved in his defense during former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
The second-in-command of the president’s defense, Jay Sekulow has worked as the coordinator of Trump’s personal legal team and was heavily involved in his defense during former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Sekulow has had a high-profile and colorful career as a litigator – serving as chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice and also hosting his own syndicated radio show, “Jay Sekulow Live.” Focusing much of his work on protecting religious and constitutional freedoms, Sekulow has argued 12 cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
He will also be assisted by his son, Jordan Sekulow.
Ken Starr
Ken Starr, the former independent counsel who led the Whitewater investigation into then-President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s, is also expected to be part of the team.
Starr’s “Whitewater” probe led to the investigation into Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky and ended with the first impeachment of a president since 1868. He is the former president and chancellor of Baylor University and the former Dean of the Pepperdine School of Law.
The inclusion of Starr on Trump's team drew an immediate reaction from Lewinsky, the former White House intern whose affair with Clinton eventually led to his impeachment before he was acquitted in a Senate trial. "This is definitely an 'are you f----ng kidding me?' kinda day," she tweeted.
Alan Dershowitz
Attorney Alan Dershowitz confirmed his role on the Trump legal team in a series of tweets, saying he would "present oral arguments at the Senate trial to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal." Dershowitz told Fox News he is not a “full-fledged” member of the legal team, though he will be contributing to the effort.
Dershowitz, an emeritus professor of law at Harvard, is a constitutional and criminal law scholar and is known for his staunch defense of civil liberties and individual rights.
Dershowitz is expected to emphasize the Constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal and highlight the fact that he voted for Hillary Clinton and opposed the impeachment trial against Bill Clinton.
Pam Bondi, Robert Ray and Jane Raskin
The Trump team is also bringing on several other veteran prosecutors, including Pam Bondi, Robert Ray and Jane Raskin to assist in the trial.
Bondi, the first female attorney general in Florida history, was a county prosecutor in Florida for 18 years. An early supporter of Trump’s campaign, Bondi was brought on by the White House in November to handle messaging for the impeachment inquiry.
Ray is a veteran federal prosecutor who succeeded Ken Starr as independent counsel and issued the final report on the Whitewater scandal and the Monica Lewinsky scandal
Raskin and her husband, who have a Florida-based law firm specializing in white-collar defense, joined Trump’s legal team in the Mueller probe in 2018 and led negotiations with Mueller’s prosecutors about potentially questioning Trump.
Michael Purpura and Patrick Philbin
Michael Purpura, who will serve as one of the two deputies on Trump’s defense team, has worked in the White House Counsel’s office since January 2019. (Leadership Connect)
Michael Purpura, who will serve as one of the deputies on Trump’s defense team, has worked in the White House Counsel’s office since January 2019.
A graduate of West Point and Columbia Law School, Purpura has a long history of working for Republican presidential administrations. He worked in the White House Counsel’s office during George W. Bush’s presidency – where he was part of the team responding to congressional investigations – and was the senior counsel to the deputy attorney general during that administration.
Along with his time in the White House, Purpura also worked in the U.S. attorney's office in both the District of Hawaii and the Southern District of New York.
Another deputy counsel is Patrick Philbin, who has close ties to both Cipollone and the George W. Bush administration.
Patrick Philbin worked at the Justice Department during the Bush administration where he handled cases relating to counterterrorism and espionage during the height of the war on terror. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The Harvard Law School graduate, who serves as deputy White House counsel, was also a partner at Kirkland & Ellis and worked as an associate deputy attorney general during the Bush administration from 2003 to 2005.
Philbin handled cases relating to counterterrorism and espionage during the height of the war on terror. One of his tasks was handling applications for electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
He is most widely known for working with then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey in preventing Attorney General John Ashcroft from signing off on a controversial warrantless wiretap program.
Fox News' Brooke Singman, Adam Shaw and Matthew Borowski contributed to this report.
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