MontCo’s Bruce Castor who declined to prosecute Bill Cosby, to represent Trump at impeachment trial

Bruce L. Castor, Montgomery County’s former elected district attorney, will be one of two lawyers leading ex-President Donald Trump’s defense at his Senate impeachment trial.

In a statement, Castor, a Republican who declined to prosecute Bill Cosby in 2005 for sexual assault, said he “[considered] it a privilege” to represent Trump at the Senate impeachment proceeding now set to begin Feb. 9.

“The strength of our Constitution is about to be tested like never before in our history. It is strong and resilient. A document written for the ages, and it will triumph over partisanship yet again, and always,” Castor said.

Castor, a former two-term county prosecutor, also served on Montgomery County’s Board of Commissioners, and did a brief stint as the state’s acting attorney general, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Trump, only the second president in U.S. history to ever be impeached twice by the U.S. House of Representatives, made the announcement in a statement released shortly after 6 p.m. on Sunday night.

Castor will be joined on the defense team by David Schoen, a trial attorney whom Trump said had been working with the former president “and other advisors to prepare for the upcoming trial.”

In the statement, Trump’s office said that both “Schoen and Castor agree that this impeachment is unconstitutional – a fact 45 Senators voted in agreement with last week.” U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., was one of the senators who broke with his colleagues and voted against a motion to dismiss the looming trial.

The announcement that Schoen and Castor would be leading Trump’s defense came hours after reports that the former president’s defense team had quit just a week before the trial was set to begin.