Discussions about payment haven’t yet occurred, but he said that if payment is made, “all the money would go to charity.”
Also joining the legal team are Ken Starr, a former U.S. solicitor general; Trump adviser and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi; former independent counsel Robert Ray, who was part of the Whitewater investigation of the Clintons; Jane Raskin, one of Trump’s private lawyers who was part of the president’s legal team during Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation; and former independent counsel Eric Herschmann of the Kasowitz Benson Torres legal firm, which has represented Trump in numerous cases over the past 15 years.
Dershowitz said he’s been asked to argue about the constitutional criteria for impeachment—something he’s written about extensively—and explain why the allegations against the president don’t rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
“I will go into the history of the formulation in the Constitution and the history of how these words came to be, and leave it to others to argue the facts, to make strategic decisions about witnesses,” he said.
In a statement announcing Trump’s defense team, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham accused House Democrats of threatening “grave and lasting damage” to U.S. institutions and the country.
“The president looks forward to the end of this partisan and unconstitutional impeachment. It’s time for Congress to turn its attention back to the work of the American people and leave sham political investigations like this one in the past,” she said.
Dershowitz has been a well-known figure in U.S. legal circles for decades. As a criminal lawyer, he was part of a team of lawyers who worked on former NFL player O.J. Simpson’s murder defense in the 1990s. Dershowitz has also represented former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson; Hearst publishing heir Patty Hearst, who was kidnapped in 1974 by a Marxist terrorist group; and televangelist Jim Bakker.