With just over a week before his second impeachment trial begins, former President Donald Trump's legal defense team is in flux after at least two key departures.
Two of his lead impeachment lawyers, Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, have parted ways with Trump, a source familiar with the matter told NPR. The South Carolina-based lawyers' departure was a "mutual decision," the person said, but no explanation was given.
The Associated Press reports that two former federal prosecutors from South Carolina, Greg Harris and Johnny Gasser, have also left the team. CNN says North Carolina lawyer Josh Howard is out too, meaning all five members of Trump's legal team have left.
All of the top lawyers bailing a little over a week before trial is rather unusual. Either they and Trump vehemently disagree about the legal strategy, or he hasn't paid their retainer, or a mixture of both. Any savvy lawyer who knows Trump's reputation would get the entire fee paid, up front.
9 comments:
Also he knows he can't be convicted of anything by Republicans in the senate, no matter how heinous the crime or how obviously guilty he is. So he's just treating it as the PR opportunity it actually is, and his lawyers are gonna spew his favorite lies on camera in the senate or he'll get other lawyers who will.
The mistake is in believing he needs or wants competent legal representation in the first place. 45 Republican senators have already voted that he shouldn't even be tried, and that's acquittal no matter who represents him.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
"?Butch" Bowers? It's too early to laugh this hard.
TPM:
They reportedly bailed because they were unwilling to argue Trump’s lies about the election being stolen. But arguing the election was stolen amounts to an affirmative defense of the events of January 6th. In other words, Trump isn’t guilty not because he didn’t incite the insurrection but because the incitement and the insurrection were justified.
Kevin Drum:
Trump understands what Bowers didn't: this isn't a trial, it's a TV show. Trump knows that his control over the Republican Party is still strong enough that he faces no chance of conviction, which means that legal arguments are unnecessary. Instead, he wants this to be a nationally televised opportunity for him to persuade the public that the 2020 election was teeming with Democratic fraud that cheated him out of reelection. He will, of course, be aided in this via coverage from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and all the rest of the right-wing media empire. I predict high ratings.
Up till now, I really thought it was all about the money. After all, he pulled in another couple million figting his loss. Not bad for losing.
But now, with his ass on the line, he is still saying he was robbed?
Although, props to Mr. Dean previously, who said, "he knows he can't get convicted".
I see now that Donny really is nuts. Captain Queeg type nuts.
"My big beautiful, perfect, election was stolen" from my pudgy hands. The "person" needs professional help, and anti-psychotic meds, right away. This has gone on for too long and he desperately needs an intervention.
I am so happy that he isn't in charge anymore, but I am increasingly worried about the trouble he can still cause.
The person is mentally ill and has a large following in spite of his illness. No good can come of that.
w3ski
I'm not sure Operation Just Let Them Speak could ask for a better spectacle.
It's not like it's a criminal, or even a civil as we know it, matter. It's not like the senate is going to send him to jail. Others may, but at best he loses his pension - secret service detail, further "public" service, etc. - over this. Really amounts to little more than public censure. If he want's to go in there and make a bigger damned fool of himself than he already has I say go ahead on'er. If the repubes want to make bigger damned fools of themselves than they already have ...
Two concerns:
1) There's another attempt at insurrection during his testimony, and
2) What if he has been a secret dem all along and we have to thank him?
“ 2) What if he has been a secret dem all along and we have to thank him?”
That’s some TB-anon level conspiracy theory right there.
Dale
Pass the popcorn, this will be a a 'really great show".
Other than that, it will be an exercise to take names for Sedition Edition part three.
Eck!
Seriously, the Repubs have been the Party of Sedition since at least Barry Goldwater, have been a detriment to any progress we may have made - where's my helicopter? I was promised a helicopter - since the mid-sixties. That's just within (many of) our memories. If the repubes go down in flames, becomes just another fringe third-party, do we owe a debt of gratitude to the catalyst of that fall? If the horror of the past four years brings about a brighter day, with changes long sought, progress realized? The more effective agent of change?
I've been hangin' out with you libs too long ...
But.
We need a sane, adult Right as a counterpoise to the Left....which has been the only adult in the room for far too long...to say nothing of bringing rational arguments to what was a WWF red meat act by the Right.
As Charley Pierce said of Madison Cawthorn: It's not about legislating, or fixing problems. It's about the show.
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