One of the lawyers working alongside Bruce Castor and David Schoen on Trump's impeachment team called the disgraced president a “f**king crook” as recently as two years ago, according to a former client.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: “Michael T. van der Veen and William J. Brennan donât exactly have lengthy records supporting Republican causes in court or offering full-throated public defenses of the former president. As recently as two years ago, according to a former client, van der Veen described Trump as a ‘fâing crook.' … Justin Hiemstra, the 24-year-old former client who recounted van der Veenâs crude remark about Trump in an interview Tuesday, said it came while the lawyer was defending him against charges that he tried to illegally hack into a government database to steal the presidentâs tax returns.”
Hiemstra told the paper he wasn't sure if van der Veen was trying to make him feel more comfortable with the remarks but “he definitely came off as fairly anti-Trump in the context that I knew him.”
The Washington Post adds: “Last year, Philadelphia lawyer Michael T. van der Veen filed a lawsuit against then-President Donald Trump accusing him of making repeated claims that mail voting is ‘ripe with fraud' despite having ‘no evidence in support of these claims.' This week, van der Veen is adopting a different posture as part of the team of attorneys defending Trumpâs efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in his Senate impeachment trial. … Now, van der Veenâs name and signature appear in Trumpâs impeachment filings alongside Castorâs, as well as those of David Schoen, an Atlanta-based lawyer Trump brought on last week.”
