David Sean and Bruce Castor, attorneys for former President Donald Trump, focused at the opening of his Senate trial on a tripartite strategy to rebut Trump's indictment.

Trump's defense team says the House of Representatives 'condemnation and ongoing trial of the former president was motivated by Democrats' fear of facing Trump in the 2024 election.

"Let's understand why we are really here?" Senate attorney Bruce Castor said on Tuesday. "We are here because the majority in the House of Representatives does not want to confront Donald Trump as a political competitor in the future," he said.

Trump's defense strategy includes emphasizing the unconstitutionality of the trial, that President Trump exercised his constitutional right to express his opinion in the elections, and finally that the House of Representatives may speed up the conviction through the absence of investigations and his refusal to summon any witnesses.

David Shawn (left), Trump's defense attorney in his impeachment trial (French)

The unconstitutionality of the trial

Attorney Castor referred to what he considered "the Democrats’ fear of confronting Trump, "and posed the question," Why do House attorneys fear? Why are the majority of the House of Representatives afraid of the American people? "And he said," Let's understand why we are really here, we are here because the majority is in the House of Representatives. " Representatives do not want to confront Donald Trump as a political competitor in the future, which is why they have to bypass that in order to reach the part of the constitution that allows impeachment. "

Trump's team considered the trial to be political, not constitutional, and unnecessary, as voters solved the problem by electing Joe Biden, and it was no longer possible to impeach Trump while he did not have any political office.

Trump's lawyers believe that the Democrats' argument that Trump should be barred from running in the future has become part of his defense, a decision that voters can take when the time is right, and the specter of punishing political opponents should not become available in the process of political competition between representatives of the two major parties.

The team cited the unconstitutionality of the trial, because the presiding judge in the Senate is not Judge John Roberts, President of the Supreme Court as stipulated in the Constitution, but the trial is presided over by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, because the accused has become a private person and not President of the United States.

Bruce Castor: Democrats fear confronting Trump in the 2024 elections (French)

First constitutional amendment

The defense team confirmed that former President Trump - like all Americans - is protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution, which refers to the absolute right to freedom of expression.

Based on the First Amendment, the defense indicated that it intends to fight the charges as if the procedures were subject to legal standards and precedents.

The defense team believed that the president and any American citizen have the right to believe that the elections are unfair, or to have any other opinion, contrary to what most Americans believe.

The team of lawyers noted that the United States is unique on the face of the earth in that its governing documents, the constitution, and the Bill of Rights specifically and intentionally protect any opinion from government retaliation.

He made it clear that if the first constitutional amendment only protects speech and opinions that the government considers common and acceptable in American culture, then this will not be a protection at all.

The text of the First Constitutional Amendment states, "Congress does not pass any law on establishing a religion, prohibits the freedom to practice it, limits freedom of speech or press, or the right of people to meet peacefully and to demand that the government do justice to them from prejudice."

Absence of investigations or witnesses

The defense team believes that the trial is happening very quickly, and that they reached it before the Senate a little more than a month after the date of the events that raised the case.

Lawyer Shawn stated that the House of Representatives - who voted to convict President Trump and request his removal from the Senate - did not take into account the risks to the presidency and the due process system.

He said, "They have been warned in the strongest terms from within our ranks, with persistence, clarity and under unambiguous conditions not to take this dangerous path to the sudden condemnation and the demand to dismiss the president, and these warnings were formulated in the context of the constitutional due process that the Democrats refused.

Trump's defense team believes that Trump's conviction in the House of Representatives was carried out with an unjustified speed, and did not adhere to the minimum levels of legal transparency recognized by conducting investigations, summoning witnesses from various parties to the case, and hearing the voice and opinion of legal and technical experts.