Some stories never get old. Some of them farcically repeat themselves.
For instance, here’s a story the press reported 10 months ago: “Donald Trump and close aides have spent the eight days since the FBI searched his Florida home rushing to assemble a team of respected defense lawyers. But the answer they keep hearing is ‘no.’”
Fast forward to now. Here’s what the press reported last night: “Donald Trump spent the day before his historic appearance in federal court scrambling to find a qualified Florida lawyer willing to join his defense team as he faces the Justice Department’s first prosecution of a former president…Several prominent Florida attorneys declined to take Trump on as a client.”
Is this delicious or what?
You can’t blame his latest round of prospective hires for saying no. There’s scant upside to getting sucked into his maelstrom, as most of his past lawyers can attest.
One of them (Michael Cohen) went to jail. Two others (Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis) are embroiled in the Georgia probe of Trump’s coup bid. Another (Emmet Flood) left the big guy to defend a Mike Pence aide. Another (John Dowd) quit five years ago after concluding, according to Bob Woodward, that Trump was “a fucking liar.” Five Trump lawyers (including Bryan Hughes, Linda Kerns, and John Scott) quit in late 2020, when it was clear that Trump’s bid to block the Pennsylvania certification of Joe Biden’s victory was fruitless. Another lawyer (Tim Parlatore) quit two months ago. Two more lawyers (Jim Trusty and John Rowley) quit last week after Trump was federally indicted. Another lawyer (Evan Corcoran) has been forced to testify in the classified documents case and told the Justice Department that Trump roped him into the coverup.
I may have forgotten other casualties, but that paragraph was already too long.
Oh wait! There was also Ty Cobb, who quit representing Trump in 2018. Last month he publicly said this about the ex-prexy’s stolen documents woes: “I do think he will go to jail.”
No wonder lawyers are saying no to Trump’s Florida sinkhole. At least two Florida notables have already spurned his eleventh-hour scramble, because, the strength of the federal indictment aside, it’s well known in legal circles that Trump is the client from hell. To serve him with blind loyalty is ultimately to soil themselves.
Three fundamental problems: He doesn’t listen to professional advice (one former lawyer advised Trump to stay off Twitter, whereupon Trump tweeted anew before the lawyer was back in his car); he wants his lawyers to amplify his lies (Rule 3.1 of the American Bar Association’s Rules of Professional Conduct stipulates that lawyers shall not bring an action that has no grounding in law or fact); and, last but surely not least, he often doesn’t pay them.
Plus, he reportedly favors a scorched-earth partisan strategy in the stolen documents case (Biden is weaponizing the DOJ! The “deep state” is conspiring against me!), whereas smart lawyers prefer to try a case in a more traditional fashion (like swaying a juror). I wouldn’t be surprised if the vibe in the room, when he interviews prospective lawyers, echoes the scene in Godfather II when Michael Corleone confronts his hesitant attorney, Tom Hagen: “You gonna come all along with me in these things I have to do, or what?”
The latest word is that Trump has at least one half-decent lawyer to accompany him to his federal court arraignment. But as his legal travails continue to worsen (as they will, with more indictments), his chronic inability to hire and retain top-notch lawyers may well leave him circling the drain.
Poor guy. Where’s my violin?