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David Schoen blames Bruce Castor's incoherence for lost GOP votes: 'This guy's career is going to disappear'

'I thought, 'this guy's career is going to disappear... I don't know how he's going to get up in the morning''

Former President Donald Trump was acquitted in the second impeachment trial. His lawyers David Schoen and Bruce Castor, despite the last-minute changes to their plan that irked the ex-president, managed to have Trump acquitted in the Senate trial. But now it looks like there might be some internal differences between the lawyers.

According to a recent report, Schoen said he almost quit on the eve of closing arguments in Trump's impeachment trial and blamed his co-counsels for the loss of several GOP votes. The Senate voted to acquit Trump by a vote of 57-43 — a lower number of acquittal votes than Schoen had expected. 

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"I was pretty confident based on discussions with the senators… that we would have something like 45 or 46 votes," he said according to a report in Jewish Insider. "I didn't think that our side answered the questions the way they should have been answered. That might have had some influence."

Saying that poor communication was a hallmark of the team from the get-go, Schoen said that Castor didn't fully understand that Schoen was going to take the lead. "[Trump's team] asked me if I would work with [Castor], if I would take the lead and so on, but then [Castor] would help me and he has a firm that can help and all that," the Alabama-based attorney explained. "I’m not sure that message was communicated to him clearly enough, because he never seemed to quite understand that I was supposed to be the lead in the case."

"The House put on a pretty good presentation. [Castor] seemed to think he was the best lawyer on the team, or something. So he stood up and said, 'I think I better jump in here,'" Schoen said. "He jumped in and obviously it was like a filibuster. It was not a good presentation."

"I thought, 'This guy's career is going to disappear. I don't know how he's going to get up in the morning,'" Schoen added. "But he didn't… He still thought he did a good job."

We earlier reported of Castor's speech noting, "Trump was almost screaming as Castor struggled to get at the heart of his defense team's argument." Castor and Schoen switched slots last minute and in an interview with Fox News, Castor explained that he decided to go off the script after House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin delivered a touching speech. "I don't like reading bad stuff about me in the newspaper any more than anyone else does, or my legal colleagues around the country saying I'm stupid," Castor explained, "but the reason I made the change was precisely so that in lowering the temperature in the room, the public coverage would be more about what I said than about what the House Managers said."

Twitter is, however, not surprised to discover this difference in the team. "Even the lawyers turn on others. Zero civility or loyalty in GOP," one tweeted. Many mocked Schoen for his latest statements saying that if Castor was this bad, he was no better. "Exactly! He was worse than Bruce Castor!! If I ever get in trouble! David Schoen Would not be in Consideration!!" one tweeted in response to a social media user saying, "So's his! Loser!! Like he did so much better!"