Donald Trump scrambling to assemble impeachment defense before the deadline

Ex-president has hired new lawyers after the previous team quit

US congressional Republicans face a week of reckoning ahead of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial as the former president contends with a deadline to respond to the charges and his party mulls whether to punish Representative Liz Cheney for backing impeachment..

Donald Trump is believed to want to base his defense on the lie that he won the 2020 presidential election. (AFP)

“The House’s impeachment of Trump – like an indictment – occurred before he was out of office, and therefore requires a trial,” tweeted Daniel Goldman.”

Trump is set to stand trial on the week of February 8 on a charge that he incitedthe riot inside the US Capitol. Republicans and Trump aides have made clear thatthey intend to make a simple argument: The trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden urged his fellow members of the Democratic Party in the Senate to keep former President Donald Trump'simpeachment trial in the upper chamber short and not to let it "derail the agenda".