In an interview with Politico published on Friday, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said that Democrats have a “very compelling” impeachment case against former President Donald Trump .
The House of Representatives impeached Trump last month, accusing him of inciting an insurrection against the U.S. government. According to Democrats, at a rally in Washington, D.C., Trump instructed his supporters to storm the Capitol building and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The Senate trial will begin soon, but Republicans have made it clear that most of them will not vote to convict the former president. Still, according to Bannon, the procedure could be damaging to Trump, because Democratic senators will try to come up with a compelling narrative to discredit him.
“The Democrats have a very emotional and compelling case. They’re going to try to convict him in the eyes of the American people and smear him forever,” Bannon said, adding that Trump’s defense team should focus on alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election and push a narrative of their own.
“He is not going to be convicted, so we must address Nov. 3. And the best place to adjudicate this is the well of the U.S. Senate. It has to be dramatic, it has to be big. It has to be the big lie versus the big steal.”
Trump spent months delegitimizing Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and claiming that the presidential race was rife with irregularities. He failed to produce evidence for his claims, with courts — including the conservative-leaning Supreme Court — rejecting dozens of lawsuits filed by his campaign.
Some close to Trump disagree with Bannon. Attorney Alan Dershowitz, who represented the former commander-in-chief during his first impeachment trial, told Politico that focusing on the 2020 race would be a “serious mistake.”
“He loses senators if he starts going into a defense of his claims on the election or his defense of his speech,” Dershowitz said, arguing that Trump’s lawyers should try to prove that it is unconstitutional to impeach a former president.
Trump reportedly endorsed Bannon’s strategy, telling his lawyers to focus on proving alleged voter fraud. The attorneys allegedly refused to do so and quit, forcing him to look for a new team. On Sunday, Trump announced that lawyers David Schoen and Bruce L. Castor Jr. will represent him.
Both Schoen and Castor released statements indicating that they will make the case that impeaching a former commander-in-chief would violate the Constitution and set a dangerous precedent that both parties could abuse in the future.