On the afternoon of Feb. 10, when former President Donald Trump’s legal team gathered in a conference room in a special suite at the Trump hotel in Washington, a longtime adviser to Trump, Justin Clark, had an announcement to make.
“You have to remember that we had literally one week and one day to prepare the defense and we were all people who never had met each other before,” one of the lawyers, David Schoen, said in a statement after he was approached for this article. Nonetheless, the team suddenly needed more lawyers. Stephen Castor, the top Republican congressional lawyer who took on Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment, recommended his cousin, Bruce Castor, a former prosecutor in Pennsylvania.
Schoen, who said he was in regular contact with Trump, added that he made another mistake: He did not tell Trump that Castor was going to have such a prominent role in the public arguments. But Trump became enraged by Castor’s meandering, low-energy performance. The former president called Clark, among others, to vent that afternoon.
Trump reached out to Schoen directly, and after they spoke, Schoen said he would give his presentation after all. While the former president had developed a rapport with Schoen, he also praised van der Veen’s performance Friday to other members of the team.