Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, which covers the South Fork, was appointed to President Trump’s impeachment defense team on Monday.
A third-term Republican from Shirley, Mr. Zeldin has emerged as one of the president’s most steadfast defenders, and has stridently pushed back against the House impeachment process.
The House of Representatives, over the furious protests of Mr. Zeldin and his colleagues, passed two articles of impeachment on Dec. 18, charging that Mr. Trump withheld nearly $400 million in military aid from the Ukrainian government in order to pressure its newly elected president to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to challenge him this fall, and his son, Hunter Biden. A trial in the Senate, which would require a two-thirds vote to convict and remove the president and where Republicans enjoy a 53-47 majority, began on Tuesday.
Other House members joining Mr. Zeldin in advising the president’s team are Elise Stefanik, also of New York, Jim Jordan of Ohio, John Ratcliffe of Texas, Debbie Lesko of Arizona, Mike Johnson of Louisianna, Mark Meadows of North Carolina, and Doug Collins of Georgia.
An Army veteran and a lawyer, Mr. Zeldin served as a military intelligence officer, prosecutor, and military magistrate while on active duty. Prior to entering politics, he had a law practice in Smithtown.
Mr. Trump, according to a press release from the White House, is confident that during the trial, Mr. Zeldin and his Republican colleagues “will help expeditiously end this brazen political vendetta on behalf of the American people.” In fact, Americans favor a Senate vote to convict and remove Mr. Trump from office 51 to 45 percent, according to a CNN poll conducted by an independent research company between last Thursday and Sunday and released on Monday. Sixty-nine percent of Americans want the Senate to call new witnesses, the poll also found.
Mr. Zeldin comments on the impeachment and trial almost daily on Twitter, and is a regular guest on the Fox News Channel, where he ardently defends the president and attacks his Democratic colleagues in the House. “House Dems corruptly rigged ENTIRETY of their impeachment inquiry,” he tweeted on Tuesday. “The President NEVER should have been impeached in the first place!” he tweeted the day before.
All three of the declared candidates for the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Mr. Zeldin in the Nov. 3 election were quick to note his inclusion on the president’s defense team. “We’ve said it all along — Zeldin is one of Trump’s top allies,” Perry Gershon, who lost to Mr. Zeldin by four percentage points in the 2018 election and hopes to challenge him again this year, said in an email.
“Is this really what the people of New York’s First expect of their Congressman?” asked Mr. Gershon, who lives in East Hampton. Mr. Zeldin is “standing up for Donald Trump and his terrible behavior. He’s been all over cable news for months, and now, he’ll be on the floor of the U.S. Senate.” Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming said in an email that “The only thing Lee Zeldin will continue to be focused on is defending the president, not working for you. . . . If we needed another sign that Zeldin is the wrong representative for this district, we’ve got it — and I won’t stand for it. We need to vote him out and elect someone who will put residents of this district first, instead of wasting time on cable news defending the president at all costs.”
Nancy Goroff, who is on leave from Stony Brook University, where she is professor and chairwoman of the chemistry department, said in an email that “Once again, Congressman Zeldin has his priorities upside down and backwards, caring more about lying for President Trump than standing up for his constituents. Maybe he thinks this is a good strategy to distract people from his terrible record of consistently voting to remove health care protections for people with pre-existing conditions, urging the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade,” and failing to support elimination of a cap on state and local tax deductions, as his congressional colleagues from Long Island did.
“We need members of Congress who will make decisions based on facts and reality, not political expediency of a corrupt president,” Ms. Goroff said.
