Alan Dershowitz
Alan DershowitzReuters

US President Donald Trump's impeachment defense team will include Ken Starr, whose investigation led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, CNBC reported Friday.

The Trump team choices came to light as the president's impeachment trial is set to begin next Tuesday in the Senate, where he is accused of abusing power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden last summer while withholding military aid to that nation.

"The president asked me to do this, and the legal team asked me to do this," Dershowitz said Friday morning in an interview with CNBC.

Dershowitz, who warned in June that impeaching Trump would “put Congress above the law”, said he will be presenting oral arguments in the Senate "to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal."

He also said that although he opposed Clinton's impeachment and voted for Hillary Clinton against Trump in 2016, "he is participating in this impeachment trial to defend the integrity of a dangerous constitutional precedent."

Starr, a former federal appeals court judge, oversaw the investigation of Bill Clinton from 1994 through 1998.

Starr's findings that Clinton had lied under oath in denying a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky led to Clinton's impeachment by the Republican-led House in late 1998. Clinton was acquitted after a trial in the Senate.

Trump’s Senate impeachment trial began on Thursday with the reading of the impeachment articles and the swearing in of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and the senators who will decide whether Trump should be removed from office.

The articles of impeachment, charging the President with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, were delivered to the Senate on Wednesday.

The trial is only beginning this week because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi withheld the formal sending of the articles for four weeks after the House voted on them, as Democrats pushed for Republicans to agree to calling witnesses and obtaining new documents for the trial.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)