This is a pleasant story from today!
“He needs a quarterback who’s a real lawyer,” said David I. Schoen, a lawyer who defended Mr. Trump in his second Senate impeachment trial.
…
On May 25, one of former President Donald J. Trump’s [i.e., FPOTUS, aka 45th] lawyers sent a letter to a top Justice Department official, laying out the argument that his client had done nothing illegal by holding onto a trove of government materials when he left the White House.
…
Government lawyers found it deeply puzzling. ...
…
…the legal arguments put forth...sometimes strike lawyers not involved in the case as more about setting a political narrative than about dealing with the possibility of a federal prosecution.
…
“There seems to be a huge disconnect between what’s actually happening — a real live court case surrounding a real live investigation — and what they’re actually doing, which is treating it like they’ve treated everything else, recklessly and thoughtlessly,” Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and F.B.I. official, said of 45th’s approach. “And for an average defendant on an average case, that would be a disaster.”
…
Some of 45ths lawyers’ efforts have also appeared ineffective or misdirected. Mr. Corcoran, in his May 25 letter, made much of 45th’s powers to declassify material as president, and cited a specific law on the handling of classified material that he said did not apply to a president. The search warrant, however, said federal agents would be seeking evidence of three potential crimes, none of which relied on the classification status of the documents found at Mar-a-Lago; the law on the handling of classified material cited by Mr. Corcoran in the letter was not among them.
…
[One of the lawyers, Jim] Trusty was hired after 45th saw him on television. …
…
45th’s allies have reached out to several other lawyers, but have repeatedly been turned down.
Corcoran in particular has raised eyebrows within the Justice Department for his statements to federal officials during the documents investigation. People briefed on the investigation say officials are uncertain whether Mr. Corcoran was intentionally evasive, or simply unaware of all the material still kept at Mar-a-Lago and found during the Aug. 8 search by the F.B.I.
…
The closest thing to a legal quarterback...is Boris Epshteyn, a onetime lawyer at the firm Milbank who was a political adviser to 45th in 2016, ultimately becoming a senior staff member on his inaugural effort and then a strategic adviser on the 2020 campaign.
Epshteyn has championed 45th's claims, dismissed by dozens of courts, that the election was stolen from him, and has risen to a role he has described to colleagues as an “in-house counsel,” helping to assemble Mr. Trump’s current legal team.
Fellas, don't pay any mind to this article by Maggie Haberman, you are doing GREAT. Keep it up!
…
Shortly before Mr. Garland announced that he was seeking to unseal the search warrant, an intermediary for 45th reached out to a Justice Department official to pass along a message that the former president wanted to negotiate, as if he were still a New York developer.
The message 45th wanted conveyed, according to a person familiar with the exchange, was: “The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?”
…Justice Department…senior leadership was befuddled by the message, and had no idea what Mr. Trump was trying to accomplish, according to an official.
I must say I didn't understand that either. Like my betters at Justice, no idea where 45th was going on that.
