前总统唐纳德·特朗普的法律团队将在周五登上职业生涯中最辉煌的阶段，几乎每个人——包括他们高调的客户——都在等着看他们是否胜任这项任务。
宾夕法尼亚州的布鲁斯·卡斯特和佐治亚州的大卫·舍恩在周二的弹劾审判前九天签署了为这位前总统辩护的协议开幕词根据熟悉特朗普反应的消息来源，这一表现招致了两党的批评，甚至引起了没有推特的特朗普的愤怒。
现在，由于参议院投票预计将达不到给特朗普定罪所需的三分之二多数，他们最大的考验可能是在民意法庭:在许多人认为民主党弹劾经理在开场辩论中表现扣人心弦之后，这个团队能否说服美国人特朗普不应该被定罪？
1月13日，众议院民主党人针对特朗普提交了一份弹劾条款，指控他在暴力和致命袭击后“煽动叛乱”围攻一周前在美国国会大厦。
过去一周，众议院弹劾经理试图将1月6日的暴徒行动与特朗普的言论联系起来，显示出生动的画面录像他的支持者在当时总统的录音片段中攻击执法人员，鼓励他的支持者代表他“拼命战斗”以推翻总统选举。
“我们将走向国会大厦，”特朗普告诉集会人群，他说，“你必须展示力量，你必须坚强。”
卡斯特和舍恩将于周五对特朗普的案件进行反驳。
舍恩在周四接受福克斯新闻采访时预览了他们的策略，强调他预计他们的防守“应该尽可能短”。
“现在我们做演示，从明天开始，”舍恩说。“我认为你至少会被你所看到的感动，并更好地了解虚伪中到底发生了什么，以及众议院经理在这种情况下采取的一些立场。”
卡斯特和舍恩面对着详细审查本周早些时候，批评者表示，他们的开场陈述迂回曲折，有时失去了参议院观众的注意力，加剧了特朗普的一些支持者对他的律师是否适合提出充分辩护的担忧。
德克萨斯州参议员约翰·科宁说:“我见过很多律师，也见过很多争论，但这不是我见过的最好的一次。”。
熟悉这位前总统反应的消息人士告诉美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)，特朗普正在通过他的玛丽亚·拉戈俱乐部(Mar-a-Lago Club)密切关注弹劾审判，他对自己的辩护团队在最初辩论中的表现感到不满。消息来源称，特朗普在陈述过程中有时会感到震惊，特别是当卡斯特称赞弹劾经理的开幕词时。
对于律师来说，弹劾审判提出了一个新的挑战，他们每个人都带着一份冗长而多样的法律简历。卡斯特在费城及其周边地区担任地方检察官和辩护律师，职业生涯丰富，但有时也有争议。但这是一份让他对现在面临的联邦问题缺乏经验的职业。
2005年，卡斯特作为一名检察官，拒绝对演员比尔·科斯比提出性侵犯指控，这成为全国的头条新闻。几年后，他在过去十年中最引人注目的案件之一中被审判并定罪。卡斯特在2008年任期结束时辞去了费城北郊蒙哥马利县的地区检察官一职，此前他决定不再竞选民选职位。在接下来的几年里，他担任了各种地方和州一级的职位，包括短暂担任宾夕法尼亚州的副检察长。
根据一个联邦案件在线数据库，自2013年进入私人执业以来，Castor已经在联邦法院提交的大约十几起案件中担任辩护律师。许多案件涉及违约指控和商业相关纠纷，但其他案件更不寻常。
在2018年的一个案例中，卡斯特代表了一家加州公司，该公司为制造设备支付的大量现金被美国国土安全部没收。根据法庭记录，当两个被雇来驾驶付款的人在宾夕法尼亚州被他们的皮卡拦下时，警方在一个盒子里发现了这笔钱——376，000美元的现金。警方怀疑他们无意中发现了犯罪活动，于是将现金交给了联邦当局，后者在卡斯特对DHS提起诉讼后才归还了这笔钱。从未有人提出指控。
更多:关于特朗普的第二次弹劾审判，你需要知道什么，如何观看
在2019年的另一个案件中，卡斯特代表费城的一名医生起诉他的前雇主坦普尔大学(Temple University)，指控他受到同事的性骚扰，随后被解雇。在法庭文件中，卡斯特坚持认为，学校对他的客户进行了“虚假起诉”，理由是“对虚假指控进行了不恰当、不专业和不完整的‘调查’。”此案仍悬而未决。
总部位于亚特兰大的律师舍恩(Schoen)的网站将他的业务描述为涵盖“联邦刑事辩护和民权”，他花了几十年时间在全国范围内的各种法律案件中为客户打官司和辩护。他的网站传记宣传了他在处理从国际有组织犯罪案件到人身伤害的诉讼方面的经验。
最近，舍恩代表资深共和党政治特工罗杰·斯通(Roger Stone)努力对特别顾问罗伯特·穆勒2019年提出的指控进行上诉。斯通被判犯有五项向国会撒谎的罪名，一项篡改证人的罪名和一项阻碍诉讼的罪名——但特朗普后来减刑斯通的判决，所以上诉被撤销了。
特朗普法律团队的第三名成员，费城的人身伤害和刑事辩护律师迈克尔·范德维恩，在《华盛顿邮报》之后于本周早些时候引起了关注报告他最近起诉了特朗普和美国邮政总局，指控他们努力限制邮寄投票。
范德维恩的客户是宾夕法尼亚州的独立国会候选人，他起诉特朗普和邮政机构邮政系统的变化，客户说这将使大流行期间缺席投票更加困难。该诉讼称，“唐纳德·特朗普总统一再声称，通过邮件投票的欺诈时机已经成熟，尽管没有证据支持这些说法。”
这个案子在选举后不久就解决了。
范德维恩、卡斯特和舍恩都没有立即回复美国广播公司新闻部寻求置评的电子邮件。
As Trump's impeachment defense begins, 2 new attorneys step into the spotlight
Former President Donald Trump's legal team will step onto the brightest stage of their careers on Friday, and almost everyone -- including their high-profile client -- is waiting to see whether they are up to the task.
Bruce L. Castor of Pennsylvania and David Schoen of Georgia signed on to defend the former president at his second impeachment trial only nine days before delivering Tuesday's opening statements -- a performance that has attracted bipartisan criticism and even the ire of a Twitter-less Trump, according to sources familiar with his reaction.
Now, with the Senate vote expected to fall short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump, their biggest test may be in the court of public opinion: After what many saw as a gripping performance by Democratic impeachment managers in their opening argument, can this team convince Americans that Trump should not be convicted?
House Democrats filed a single article of impeachment against Trump on Jan. 13 for "incitement of insurrection" following the violent and deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol one week earlier.
Over the past week, House impeachment managers have sought to tie the mob's actions on Jan. 6 to Trump's rhetoric, showing graphic video clips of his supporters attacking members of law enforcement in between soundbites of the then-president encouraging his supporters to "fight like hell" on his behalf to overturn the presidential election.
"We're going to walk down to the Capitol," Trump told rally-goers, saying that "you have to show strength, and you have to be strong."
Castor and Schoen will offer their rebuttal of the case against Trump on Friday.
Schoen previewed their strategy in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, emphasizing that he anticipates their defense "should be as short as possible."
"Now we make our presentation, starting tomorrow," Schoen said. "I think you will at least be moved by what you see and get a much better picture of exactly what is going on in the hypocrisy and some of the positions taken by the House managers in this case."
MORE: Trump team, in filing, argues impeachment trial is unconstitutionalCastor and Schoen faced scrutiny earlier this week after critics said their opening statements meandered and at times lost the attention of their audience in the Senate chamber, exacerbating concern among some of Trump's supporters over whether his lawyers are fit to present a sufficient defense.
"I've seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of arguments, and that was not one of the finest I've seen," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex.
Sources familiar with the former president's reaction told ABC News that Trump, who is keeping tabs on the impeachment trial from his Mar-a-Lago Club, was displeased with the performance of his defense team in their initial arguments. Trump was described by the sources as being stunned at times during the presentation, specifically when Castor complimented the impeachment managers' opening statements.
For the attorneys, who each bring with them a lengthy and diverse legal resume, the impeachment trial presents a new challenge. Castor has had a prolific -- and at times controversial -- career as a local prosecutor and defense attorney in and around Philadelphia. But it is a career that has offered him little experience in the types of federal issues he now faces.
In 2005, Castor made national headlines when, as a prosecutor, he declined to bring charges of sexual assault against actor Bill Cosby, who years later was tried and convicted in one of the highest-profile cases of the past decade. Castor stepped down as district attorney for Montgomery County, the northern suburb of Philadelphia, at the end of his term in 2008 after deciding not to run for the elected position again, and over the next several years he served in various local and state-level positions, including a short stint as solicitor general of Pennsylvania.
Since entering private practice in 2013, Castor has served as a defense attorney in about a dozen cases filed in federal court, according to an online database of federal cases. Many of the cases have involved breach-of-contract allegations and business-related disputes, but others were more unusual.
In a 2018 case, Castor represented a California company whose large cash payment for manufacturing equipment had been seized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. According to court records, when two men hired to drive the payment cross-country were pulled over in their pickup truck in Pennsylvania, police found the money -- $376,000 in cash -- inside a box. Suspecting they had stumbled onto criminal activity, the police turned the cash over to federal authorities, who returned the money only after Castor filed a lawsuit against DHS. No charges were ever filed.
In another case from 2019, Castor represented a Philadelphia doctor who sued his former employer, Temple University, for defamation after he was accused of sexual harassment by colleagues and subsequently fired. In court documents, Castor insisted the school conducted a "sham prosecution" of his client based on "an inept, unprofessional, and incomplete 'investigation' into [the] false allegations." The case is still pending.
Schoen, an Atlanta-based attorney whose website describes his practice as covering "federal criminal defense and civil rights," has spent decades litigating and defending clients across a broad spectrum of legal cases throughout the country. His website biography advertises his experience in handling litigation ranging from international organized crime cases to personal injury.
Most recently, Schoen represented veteran Republican political operative Roger Stone in his efforts to appeal a 2019 conviction on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. Stone had been found guilty on five counts of lying to Congress, one count of witness tampering and one count of obstruction of a proceeding -- but Trump later commuted Stone's sentence, so the appeal was dropped.
A third member of Trump's legal team, Philadelphia-based personal injury and criminal defense attorney Michael van der Veen, drew attention earlier this week after the Washington Post reported that he had recently sued Trump and the U.S. Postal Service over their efforts to curtail mail-in voting.
Van der Veen's client, an independent congressional candidate from Pennsylvania, sued Trump and the mail agency over postal system changes the client said would make it more difficult to vote absentee during the pandemic. The lawsuit alleged "repeated claims by President Donald J. Trump that voting by mail is ripe with fraud, despite having no evidence in support of these claims."
The case was settled shortly after the election.
Neither van der Veen, Castor or Schoen immediately responded to emails from ABC News seeking comment.
