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How will the political trial of Trump in the Senate 1:54
(CNN) - US President Donald Trump has added three experienced lawyers to his legal defense team at the impeachment trial, said people familiar with the matter, including Kenneth Starr, the prosecuting prosecutor whose job led the political trial from President Bill Clinton.
Alan Dershowitz, a constitutional lawyer, and Robert Ray, Starr's successor in the Independent Advisory Office during the Clinton administration, also join the team, the people said.
The three are expected to join a legal team headed by White House lawyer Pat Cipollone and external lawyer Jay Sekulow, who are still expected to deliver statements on behalf of the president in the Senate. Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi and Trump's personal advisor Jane Raskin will also complement the legal team in the president's impeachment trial, said a person familiar with the matter. Everyone is expected to have spokesperson roles.
Trump's political trial for the Ukrainian scandal officially began Thursday. The result is almost determined, since the two-thirds vote required to remove the president from office would require 20 Republican senators to break ranks. The White House did not organize a formal defense during the House investigation, as it refused to cooperate with the investigation led by the Democrats.
A spokesman for Trump's legal team said Dershowitz will present oral arguments at the Senate trial.
"He is participating in this political trial hearing to defend the integrity of the Constitution and prevent the creation of a dangerous constitutional precedent," said the legal team, which noted that Dershowitz opposed the Clinton political trial and voted for his wife, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 presidential election.
Starr, Dershowitz and Ray are expected to play a constitutional and historical role during the procedures to support Cipollone and Sekulow.
Trump has relied on Dershowitz to receive advice throughout Mueller's investigation and during his political trial. The two had been arguing about the union of Dershowitz for several weeks.
Bondi has been working at the White House as an advisor during the political trial proceedings. Raskin is a white-collar defense attorney who, along with her husband, worked for Trump during Mueller's investigation.
The decision to allow the allies of the House of Representatives to participate in the defense remains fluid, people with the matter said.
Officials have hesitated to talk about who they are adding to the legal team after a failed attempt to hire Trey Gowdy last fall. Gowdy became the new face of Trump's political trial defense team for just a few hours before Trump said federal lobbying rules would not allow him to start until January. He has continued to talk with Gowdy privately about the situation.
Celebrity defense lawyers
Trump's decision to add Starr, Dershowitz and Ray not only adds decades of experience to his defense, but also the legal star power for a president always aware of having defenders who can present their case well in the media.
Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law School, gained fame as a member of the OJ Simpson defense team in the criminal trial of the former soccer star in the mid-1990s. Since then he has defended many notable clients and remains a family legal analyst on television. Some advisors have expressed in private their concern that their presence could be a distraction given their ties with Jeffrey Epstein, the late pedophile businessman. Dershowitz is involved in a lawsuit with a woman who claims she was a victim of Epstein, and also claims that Dershowitz sexually abused her and defamed her. Dershowitz has responded since then, claiming that she defamed and intentionally inflicted emotional distress.
Starr became a household name in the late 1990s as the then independent lawyer who oversaw the investigation that led to Clinton's dismissal. The investigation began with Starr investigating the Clintons' participation in the Whitewater land agreement before the investigation expanded to include the extramarital affair between Bill Clinton and White House expander Monica Lewinsky.
When Starr resigned in October 1999, citing the "intense politicization of the independent advisory process," Ray succeeded.
After the announcement on Friday morning, Lewinsky tweeted: "This is definitely a 'are you kidding me?'"
- Kevin Liptak of CNN contributed to this report.
Political judgment