Republican senators mock Donald Trump's car-crash impeachment lawyer Bruce Castor for 'rambling' opening speech about record players, Nebraska judges and 150-year-olds – and even inviting cops to arrest ex-president
Republicans are not pleased with Donald Trump's impeachment defense, decrying the former president's attorney Bruce Castor for spending almost an hour 'rambling' on the Senate floor in a speech devoid of any coherent argument against the constitutionality of the trial.
'I thought the President's lawyer – the first lawyer just rambled on and on and on and didn't really address the constitutional argument,' Texas Senator John Cornyn told reporters outside the chamber following the vote Tuesday evening.
'Finally, the second lawyer got around to it and, I thought, did an effective job,' he continued, referencing David Schoen. 'But I've seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of arguments and that was not one of the finest I've seen.'
Castor was until now best known for his decision -while serving as Montgomery County, Pennsylvania's district attorney - not to prosecute Bill Cosby on rape charges. That decision was overturned by his successor and Cosby, 83, is now serving three to 10 years for sexual assault.
Trump tapped the private practice attorney last month after parting with his previous legal team.
Senators were hardly the only ones mocking Castor: 'My Cousin Vinny' trended on Twitter as the former Pennsylvania prosecutor was ridiculed for his performance and compared unflatteringly to the Texas lawyer who forgot to switch off the kitten filter when appearing remotely in court this week.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said the whole trial is a 'waste of time' before struggling to say what he thought about Castor, starting with a laugh when he was asked.
'I don't think the lawyers did the most effective job,' Cruz told reporters on Capitol Hill after a long pause.
Castor made his first mistake in his opening sentences saying 'I am the lead prosecutor, lead counsel for the 45th president of the United States' - then saying 'I do know the difference.'
Donald Trump's defense attorney Bruce Castor is facing a slew of backlash from Republican senator – and Twitter – for his 'rambling' speech they claim was void of any coherent legal argument against the constitutionality of moving forward with the impeachment trial
While Jon Stewart mocked Castor as a 'sh***y public defender', a respondent to that thread said all he could think of is 'My Cousin Vinny'
Others on Twitter compared him to a bad lawyer in The Simpsons
A meme circulated of Castor in his pinstripe suit on the floor of the Senate Tuesday with the head of a cat
Another meme on Instagram poked fun at Trump's anger at his attorneys, claiming his next team would be comprised of the 'Three Stooges'
He also praised lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin for his 'impressive' argument for the constitutionality of holding an impeachment trial for a no longer sitting president, admitted that he and David Schoen had changed their plans because it.
'I'll be quite frank with you, we changed what we were going to do on account that we thought that the House manager's presentation was well done,' he said.
As the 47-minute speech went on, it raised more and more eyebrows among senators. Some Republicans were seen passing notes to each other.
'Senators of the United States – they're not ordinary people. They're extraordinary people in the technical sense – extraordinary people,' Castor said to the room of all 100 U.S. senators before launching into a rambling and seemingly unrelated story about listening to records of past senators speaking.
'When I was growing up in suburban Philadelphia, my parents were big fans of Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois. And Senator Dirksen recorded a series of lectures that my parents had on a record and – we still know what records are right? On the thing you put the needle down on and it played,' he said.
'Here's little Bruce – 8, 9, 10-years-old – listening to this back in the late 60s,' he described, before claiming Dirksen's voice was commanding.
At another point, in an argument of the unprecedented nature of two impeachments against Trump, Castor appeared to try to take a stab at making a joke that did not land and added to the chaos of the defense argument.
'Until the impeachment of Bill Clinton, no one alive had ever lived through a presidential impeachment – not unless some of you are 150-years-old,' Castor said to the otherwise silent room. The oldest senators are 87, the president pro tempore who is presiding over the trial, Patrick Leahy, is 80 and the average age if 61.8, dragged down by 33-year-old Jon Ossoff and 41-year-old Josh Hawley.
'Not a single person alive had lived through presidential impeachment. Now most of us have lived through three of them.'
At one point he spoke about Nebraska, home state of Ben Sasse, one of the most outspoken Republican critics of Trump, in a meandering quote which Sasse said later he did not understand, calling the courts of Nebraska 'pretty smart jurists.'
In yet another questionable move, at another point during Castor's remarks, he even suggested Trump could be arrested.
'If my colleagues on this side of the chamber,' Castor pointing to Democrats, 'actually think that President Trump committed a criminal offense… after he's out of office, you go and arrest him.'
'So there is no opportunity where the President of the United States can run rampant in January – the end of his term – and just go away scot-free,' he continued. 'The Department of Justice does know what to do with such people. And so far, I haven't seen any activity in that direction.'
Castor, in making that argument, is claiming that instead of facing impeachment, Trump should actually be criminally pursued by the Justice Department.
He reiterated that there are also no findings or charges related to Trump somehow conspiring with those who stormed the Capitol on January 6.
Perhaps worst of all for Trump's own pride, he directly conceded that Trump had lost saying: 'President Trump no longer is in office. The object of the Constitution has been achieved. He was removed by the voters.'
Then he said the electorate were 'smart' for doing it.
Reports emerged at the same time Trump's second lawyer, David Schoen, was wrapping up his defense argument that the former president was furious at his legal team.
On Newsmax, the anchors switched from showing Castor's speech to interviewing Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor who had spoken for Trump at his first impeachment.
'There is no argument. I have no idea what he’s doing. I have no idea why he’s saying what he’s saying,'Dershowitz said.
Even one of Trump's biggest congressional allies, Senator Lindsey Graham, said Castor's argument was just 'OK' and claimed he wasn't exactly sure where the defense lawyers were going with their remarks on the floor.
'I think the President's defense was OK,' Graham told reporters as he walked from the chamber back to his office after voting against moving forward with the trial. 'I mean it took a long time to get to where I think the meat of the question is.'
'I really didn't know – I thought I knew where it was going, and I really didn't know very well,' Graham said of Castor's argument, adding that only one mind was changed in the whole four hours of procedure.
While five of those votes were already expected, one wildcard joined the pack – Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who said his mind was changed after hearing both arguments from the House impeachment managers and Trump's defense team on Tuesday.
One Twitter user said Castor is a worse lawyer than Trump's former attorney Rudy Giuliani
Former FBI agent and now CNN analyst Asha Rangappa suggested Trump's lawyers are doing back on purpose because they want to 'get off the case'
Cassidy was straightforward on what swayed him to change his mind: Trump's legal defense.
'Did you listen to it?,' he said to reporters gathered after the vote. 'If you listen to it, it speaks for itself. It was disorganized, random, they talked about many things but they didn't talk about the issue at hand.'
'And so if I'm an impartial juror, and I'm trying to make a decision based upon the facts as presented on this issue, then the House managers did a much better job,' Cassidy said.
He also released a statement reiterating his thought process on the vote.
'If anyone disagrees with my vote and would like an explanation, I ask them to listen to the arguments presented by the House Managers and former President Trump's lawyers,' the Louisiana senator said. 'The House managers had much stronger constitutional arguments. The president's team did not.'
He made clear in the statement, however: 'This vote is not a prejudgment on the final vote to convict.'
Texas Senator John Cornyn said after the vote Tuesday: 'I thought the President's lawyer – the first lawyer just rambled on and on and on and didn't really address the constitutional argument... I've seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of arguments and that was not one of the finest I've seen'
Six Republicans crossed the party line Tuesday night to vote with the 50 Democrats that moving forward with an impeachment trial against an ex-president is constitutional.
When walking out of the chamber on Tuesday night, Murkowski, one of the Republican defectors, made clear to reporters she felt Trump's lawyers missed their opportunity to present a sound case against the constitutionality of continuing the impeachment proceedings against now-private citizen Trump.
'Today was supposed to be an opportunity to be briefed on the constitutionality of whether or not you can move forward with an impeachment of a former president,' the Alaska moderate Republican said. 'I thought that the House presented a pretty good legal analysis.'
She also claimed Castor was a disaster for the former president, but said Schoen was able to redeem some of the legal argument.
'In fairness, I was really stunned at the first attorney who presented for former President Trump,' she said of Castor. 'I couldn't figure out where he was going, spent 45 minutes going somewhere, but I don't think he helped with us better understanding where he was coming from on the constitutionality of this.'
House impeachment managers, led by Representative Raskin, kicked off Tuesday's proceedings by presenting an argument rooted in legal theory and precedent that an impeachment trial against a former president is in line with the Constitution.
Castor and Schoen were not Trump's first choice, but were picked up after several other law firms refused to take the case and he fired his first team after they refused to take Trump's desired approach arguing a fraudulent election.
From 2000-2008, Castor, a Republican, was district attorney in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania – an area where Trump claims there were wide instances of voter fraud by Democrats.
Famously, during that time he decided not to prosecute Bill Cosby on rape charges, which his successor went ahead with – leading to the comedian being convicted and imprisoned.
The attorney later had to settle a case with Cosby victim Andrea Costand who claimed Castor defamed her by suggesting she was not credible.
In August 2016, Castor briefly became acting attorney general of Pennsylvania for less than a month. He is now in private practice.
The 59-year-old
Despite facing harsh criticism for his approach on Tuesday, Castor defended himself, claiming he doesn't plan to switch up any legal strategy going forward in the trial.
'I thought we had a good day,' Castor told the press on Capitol Hill when asked about criticism – including from Republicans – that he didn't make a good case against constitutionality for the trial.
'Do you anticipate any sort of adjustments after today?' a reporter asked of the former president's attorney.
'No, I set up the outline a week ago and it will not change,' he shot back.
The Senate voted 56-44 on Tuesday that the trial is constitutional and to move forward on Wednesday with the proceedings.
The Republican senators who voted along with Democrats include Cassidy, Murkowski, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
Most surprising of the six is Cassidy, who previously agreed with 44 other Republicans that holding the trial would go against the Constitution's intent since he is no longer the sitting president.
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