The former president had trouble obtaining Florida counsel for Tuesday’s arraignment after two of his lawyers quit, a legal source tells
Donald Trump had trouble obtaining counsel for his arraignment in Florida on Tuesday, a legal source tells , after two of his lawyers quit the same day a federal indictment was made public.
The former president is making his first appearance at the Miami federal courthouse Tuesday afternoon to be arraigned, just a few days after he was indicted by a federal grand jury. In an unsealed, 38-count indictment, prosecutors allege Trump, 76, retained over 100 classified documents with some of the most sensitive topics originating from seven intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA and Department of Defense.
Amid the chaos of the indictment being unsealed on Friday, two of Trump’s attorneys – Jim Trusty and John Rowley — announced they were stepping back from their roles.
With his latest legal troubles, Trump appears to be facing another challenge: finding people to represent him in the case.
“One of his PAC heads called six law firms in Florida to represent the former president and they all said no,” a plugged in legal source tells .
The source adds that Trump “is still looking desperately. It could work to Trump’s advantage though to see what this Trump-appointed judge does if he doesn’t have adequate legal representation in Florida.”
It was ultimately decided that attorneys Todd Blanche, who represented Trump at his April arraignment in a separate criminal case, and Chris Kine, the former solicitor general of Florida, would be by the former president’s side in Miami on Tuesday.
Attorneys may be wary of defending the former president based on the indictment recently unsealed by federal authorities, which lays out the case against him and includes mention of how Trump allegedly told his own attorneys to lie to authorities about federal documents.
The indictment and arraignment come months after the FBI searched the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home and a subpoena from federal authorities requested that Trump hand over any classified documents he had brought with him after leaving the White House.
According to the indictment, Trump suggested that his attorneys lie to the FBI and the grand jury by telling them he “did not have documents called for by the grand jury subpoena.”
Trump also allegedly had his personal valet, Walt Nauta (who is also charged in the case), move classified documents “to conceal them from Trump’s attorney, the FBI, and the grand jury.”
One of Trump’s attorneys told investigators that the former president told his legal team he didn’t want anybody looking at his documents and made comments such as, “Well what if we, what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with [the FBI]?”
Trump also said, according to the attorney, “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here? … Well look isn’t it better if there are no documents?”
Elsewhere in the indictment, the same attorney details how he asked Trump whether he should take one of the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and place it in a safe at his hotel room. Trump, the attorney told investigators, “made a funny motion as though – well okay why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out. And that was the motion that he made. He didn’t say that.”
Now, the legal source tells , “Trump is looking for young lawyers to make himself look better and because he doesn’t think older lawyers have the ability to help him in this serious situation.”
The source adds: “He worries they are too old and don’t have the in-depth knowledge of what they can use in his defense. They are basically too removed.”