Donald Trump doubled down on debauchery yet again with Sunday’s announcement of new attorneys representing the disgraced former president at his second impeachment trial.
Attorneys Bruce Castor and David Schoen will now be leading the ex-president’s legal team as he prepares to defend himself before the Senate on the charge that he incited the deadly insurrection in Washington, D.C., on Jan 6. The pair were hired after five previous lawyers quit following reports that he insisted that they use the trial to defend his voter fraud lie rather than making the constitutional case against convicting him now that he’s left office.
Let's start with Schoen, who considers himself a civil rights attorney. In a 2020 docuseries on Discovery Channel that chronicled the death of pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, Schoen, who’s also defended wonderful people like Roger Stone, said: “Before he died, Jeffrey Epstein had asked me to take over the defense of his criminal case… nobody can say there's absolutely no basis to these conspiracy theories. I don't believe he took his own life.” Yeah, that’s how bad it’s gotten. But of course, Trump spent years palling around with Epstein before they fell out, so maybe it all stands to reason.
And Bruce Castor, who is the cousin of Stephen Castor, a House Republican staff lawyer involved with Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, is far worse.
In 2005, Castor, as district attorney of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, declined to charge entertainment icon and sexual predator Bill Cosby. This was a year after accuser Andrea Constand had reported that Cosby drugged and molested her.
At the time, Castor issued a statement claiming that the investigation “finds insufficient credible and admissible evidence exists upon which any charge against Mr. Cosby could be sustained beyond a reasonable doubt.”
It would not be until Cosby was finally on trial in 2016, this time with multiple victims coming forward with more bombshell allegations, that it would finally be revealed as to how bad Castor screwed up the first time. It turned out that he had secretly promised the former TV dad immunity from criminal prosecution in exchange for his testimony at a civil trial. He just forgot to tell the world about it.
He defended himself by arguing that his decision set the stage for a civil suit against Cosby. “I thought making Mr. Cosby pay money was the best I was going to be able to set the stage for,” Castor said during the 2016 trial. “I was hopeful that I had made Ms. Constand a millionaire.”
But Judge Steven T. O’Neill chided Castor over the secret agreement as new District Attorney Kevin Steele, who finally prosecuted Cosby, argued that “a secret agreement that permits a wealthy defendant to buy his way out of a criminal case isn’t right.”
Steele had defeated Castor to become district attorney only a few months prior. Steele, a Democrat, had run a gut-punching campaign calling out Castor, who had also been involved in other high-profile cases involving alleged sexual misconduct, for “not looking out for the victims.”
“Castor said, ‘We don’t charge people for making a mistake or doing something foolish,'” one of Steele’s campaign ads remarked. “Many more victims came forward and Castor admitted he could have used their testimony against Cosby.” The upshot: “Bruce Castor was not looking out for the victims.”
Adding further damage to Castor’s reputation, Constand would later sue him for defamation following questionable remarks he had previously made publicly about her account of sexual assault, leading the two of them to confidentially settle the dispute in 2019.
At this point, it should come as no surprise why Trump would hire a man like Castor to defend him. Trump, who has also been hit with multiple accusations of sexual assault, clearly wants someone who has no problem representing powerful men who are in deep shit. Even worse, it’s obvious that Castor is the kind of right-wing henchman who doesn’t mind the political backlash but instead leans into it.
“The strength of our Constitution is about to be tested like never before in our history,” Castor said in a recent statement on his appointment by Trump. “It is strong and resilient. A document written for the ages, and it will triumph over partisanship yet again, and always.”
You can now only laugh to keep from crying at this point. An impeachment of the highest office in the land is now a spectacle fit for a reality television series. Our former president has once again proven himself to be a deplorable human being that’s now bringing along a new cast of clowns to join in on the circus.
But what perhaps might be the most devastating blow is that regardless of how terrible this trial will be, and how God awful the defense is already shaping up to be, the cowardly Republicans who are still standing by their pathetic leader are going to acquit him regardless. This is America.
