WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump has spent much of his career deploying high-powered lawyers to make his bids. He now has trouble finding top-level help when he needs it most.
Since losing the November election against President Joe Biden, Trump has been hemorrhagic in lawyers. Established companies turned away from their unfounded allegations of election fraud. Those he retained made elementary mistakes in cases that were quickly dismissed on merit. His personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was ridiculed for his performance before a federal judge during an election-related case.
With his legal options to contest the exhausted election, Trump still needed a team to represent him in his historic second impeachment trial accused of inciting the deadly U.S. Capitol revolt on January 6th. A team of South Carolina lawyers was detained and then withdrawn, so Trump was left with a Pennsylvania and an Alabama lawyer, who gave them just a few days to prepare.
High-profile clients tend to be strong attractions for ambitious attorneys, but Trump’s rocky relationships with his attorneys show the limits to taking on cases with dubious merits. His allegations of fraud were rejected by the courts, his attorney general and other prominent Republicans.
Trump’s dismissal lawyers began their defense by misspelling the words “United States” in their writing. And his initial presentation during the trial was affected even by some of Trump’s most ardent supporters.
Trump smoked from his pole in Mar-a-Lago, and some in his circle said he had to fire his lawyers. But you may not have many more options. And his legal danger is growing, most recently with a new criminal investigation into his electoral conduct in Georgia.
Trump has often used litigation as a weapon. He and his namesake company have been involved in dozens of lawsuits, from multi-million dollar real estate disputes to personal defamation lawsuits and fights with casino sponsors. It also threatens legal action on a regular basis.
But aside from a few loyal lawyers like Giuliani and a small high-powered team representing him for New York-related investigations, it’s unclear which heavyweights represent them.
His dismissal team, David Schoen, a frequent television legal commentator, and Bruce Castor, a former Pennsylvania district attorney, had just over a week to prepare after Trump and his former defense team they broke up because they refused to offer Trump’s demand for election fraud as a defense.
Castor, who has faced criticism for his decision as district attorney not to charge actor Bill Cosby in a sex crime case, began with a puzzling presentation. Unlike Democrats, who relied on a carefully structured and planned presentation to argue the constitutionality of the procedure, Castor only had a yellow legal block with handwritten notes on the front and seemed to be talking about the fist.
As Trump watched on television, he complained privately that his defense seemed weak compared to that of Democrats, who showed an emotional video of the Jan. 6 chaos that has left Capitol Hill. Former Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro, who maintains close contact with the former president, asked him to fire his legal team and take a new approach focused on Trump’s unfounded claims of massive electoral fraud.
Navarro told The Associated Press that he “warned the president that his legal team would fail him.”
Trump’s first removal team was led by notary defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, as well as then-White House attorney Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, who has argued cases before the Supreme Court.
Dershowitz was baffled by Castor’s performance and told Newsmax, “I have no idea what he’s doing.” Several Republican senators were equally stunned. Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said the Trump team did a “terrible job.”
When asked Wednesday about the criticism, Castor told reporters, “Only one person’s opinion matters.” Castor was asked if Trump expressed any disapproval and replied, “Far from it.”
Trump was hardly satisfied with the outcome in his election fights in the courts, regardless of who the lawyers were. Some of them made extravagant claims that the courts quickly sent.
Attorney Sidney Powell, whom Trump had said was part of his team of “wonderful lawyers and representatives,” falsely suggested that a vendor of vote-counting equipment had been set up in Venezuela to prepare for Hugo Chávez’s election. , who died in 2013. Trump’s campaign later distanced itself from Powell, saying he practiced law on his own. The seller, Dominion Voting Systems, sued Powell for defamation last month and is looking for $ 1.3 billion.
The day after the riot, a lawyer representing the Trump campaign in a Philadelphia election case asked to withdraw from the matter, filing an impressive motion in federal court that said Trump “used the services of the lawyer to to commit a crime “and” insists on taking action that the lawyer considers disgusting. ”
Dozens of judges rejected Trump’s election claims, sometimes with scathing criticism. But the power of these false claims lingered with Trump supporters, who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.
Although Trump’s statements at a rally before the riot have drawn attention to his calls to “fight,” his lawyers pushed for nearly two months false and unfounded claims of electoral rigging in several states, promoted widely by conservative media and social media.
But after the dismissal, Trump’s legal needs are likely to accelerate, with investigations in New York, Georgia and possibly Washington, DC, where prosecutors will have the power to subpoena.
“You don’t want to be the last person in America to be a bar member and be willing to take on your case as a representative,” said Jessica Levinson, director of the Loyola Law School’s Institute of Public Services.
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Richer reported from Boston and Merchant reported from Houston. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Eric Tucker in Washington, Kate Brumback in Atlanta, and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, SC, contributed to this report.