Trump Adds Jeffrey Epstein’s Attorney To Impeachment Defense Team

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Ex-President Donald Trump has announced two new members of his defense team for his upcoming Senate impeachment trial… and one of the lawyers, David Schoen, worked with Jeffrey Epstein and was apparently set to take over Epstein’s legal defense at the time of his suicide in a New York prison. Schoen and former Philadelphia-area District Attorney Bruce Castor joined Trump’s impeachment trial team after the recent resignation of all five previous members of the team, who the ex-president was apparently pressuring to raise his imaginary claims of widespread election fraud at the impending Senate trial.

Schoen met with Epstein within the last two weeks of his life after other instances where Epstein sought “advice,” as the lawyer put it. The two of them appear to have set up a working attorney-client relationship, although Schoen indicated that he “wasn’t sure where the relationship was going” and didn’t charge Epstein for the so-called advice.

According to an article from the Atlanta Jewish Times, Schoen admitted that Epstein — who faced charges over child rape and sex trafficking — might have had “very peculiar tastes with women,” as the lawyer heinously described the situation. However, Schoen added, he did “not believe [Epstein] was guilty of the charges brought against him by the Southern District of New York,” adding that those charges “should have been dismissed and barred by the agreement in the Southern District of Florida.” In the originally secret 2008 federal plea deal, Epstein pleaded guilty to two state prostitution charges and avoided prosecution over a 53-page federal indictment on charges of sex trafficking. That deal was orchestrated by Alex Acosta, who was U.S. Attorney in the area at the time and eventually served in the Trump administration as its Secretary of Labor.

Castor, for his part, is known for refusing to bring a case against Bill Cosby after Andrea Constand revealed her story of suffering sexual assault that the ex-entertainer perpetrated. Castor pointed to a so-called “lack of evidence” as underlying his refusal to bring a case against Cosby, the Daily Beast explains, but the District Attorney who took over after Castor brought and won a case against Cosby, who is now in prison.