President Donald Trump has closely consulted with aides about the makeup of the team tasked with defending him in the upcoming Senate impeachment trial, according to sources familiar with the matter
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The unknown factor here is whether a handful of the president’s staunchest allies in the House will be part of the defense team on the Senate floor. Republican Reps. Jim Jordan, John Ratcliffe and Doug Collins have spent hours prepping at the White House with members of the counsel’s office, according to sources familiar with the meetings. It would be Trump – and his attorney’s – preference to include them for a number of reasons.
GOP Sen. John Cornyn also said he would advise the president against it, telling ABC News that it’s better to start fresh in the Senate because the House impeachment inquiry “was a little bit of a circus and I don’t think the Senate trial will be anything like that, which is fine with me.” The president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has privately urged the president that he wants to be part of the defense in the trial, according to sources, and publicly told reporters earlier this month that he’d like to prosecute the case himself.
Trump has previously said that he would like witnesses like acting White House Chief of Staff Mike Mulvaney and former National Security Adviser John Bolton to testify in the Senate trial, but more recently has indicted he would block any witnesses from discussing events that took place during their time at the White House.
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