Legal experts panned Trump's lawyers as they continued to grapple with the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago raid.
They're either incompetent or out of their depth according to a former prosecutor.
The latest lawsuit by the Trump team was mocked as a PR stunt by experts.
Legal experts and former prosecutors are not happy with former President Donald Trump's legal team.
According to a former federal prosecutor, they appear to be either completely incompetent or out of their depth. The former president has a hard time finding lawyers because he requires them to file documents and take positions that have no legal support at all.
The mockery of Trump's legal team comes after they filed a lawsuit requesting the appointment of a special master to sift out potentially privileged materials seized in the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid.
One attorney familiar with the Trump team's thought process expressed skepticism that the former president's lawyers are equipped to handle a case like this.
"He's a big believer in the public relations assault, which I've never seen before," the lawyer said. It says to me that they want to kill the messenger and use guilt instead of facts.
They said that they don't see anyone with the experience to represent a former president. A lot is at stake here. He is a high risk guy because he plays it up against the wind.
Christina Bobb, a former host on the right-wing One America News, is one of the people on Trump's legal team.
According to Insider of Trump, he would be difficult to manage. It seems like he doesn't like paying attention to what the lawyers are telling them to do, and no lawyer likes to be in that situation because you can't really control the strategy of the case.
Ty Cobb was a White House special counsel during the investigation.
It's difficult to tell if his lawyers are following his advice or if he's following his own.
Attorneys who worked for Trump could suffer a lot of damage to their reputation.
The lawyer who defended Trump in his second impeachment said in a previous interview that his speaking engagements were canceled.
"If you represent the former president, you might lose your other clients," Mariotti said. Some lawyers may be reluctant to work for Trump because of concerns that he would ask or try to force them to do things that are unethical or highly problematic, he said.
Legal scholars began to pick apart the lawsuit shortly after it was filed.
The national security lawyer Bradley Moss said he was confused and shocked that Trump had three lawyers risk their licenses by filing the motion.
The lawsuit read like a press release in which Trump aired grievances that were long anticipated in the event of heightened scrutiny from the Justice Department. In the filing, Trump's lawyers referred to the former president as the "clear favourite" in the Republican primary if he decides to run.
Barb McQuade is a University of Michigan law professor and former US attorney in Detroit.
McQuade said that lawyers who sign their names to a brief need to remove frivolous arguments. This one has a lot of things.
Andrew Weissmann, a former FBI general counsel who later worked on the special counsel Robert Muller's team, told MSNBC that the lawsuit is incriminating of the former President.
Weissmann said that the filing opens a wide door for the DOJ. All the factual lies and misrepresentations can now be addressed by AG Garland.
Ryan Goodman, a professor at the NYU School of Law and a founding editor of Just Security, said that Trump's court filing is a legal argument. There is a demand for a special master to remove documents from executive privilege. Those are the kind of documents that are in the National Archives.
David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor from the Southern District of Florida, told Insider that the lawsuit reads to him like a pre-emptive motion to suppress and that the issues they touched on would normally be raised after charges are filed.
When there are certain allegations of a possible privilege intrusion, a special master is usually appointed.
Weinstein said that Trump's lawyers appeared to makeclusory statements and submit their own set of facts that are not supported by affidavits or other sworn statements.
Much of what they say can be rebutted by the government.
According to Orin Kerr, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law, it is normal for the government not to know the exact form of every document they are looking for.
A recent New York Times story detailing how Trump retained boxes containing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago even after the Justice Department subpoenaed the materials may necessitate a lawyer for Trump. The National Archives received 15 boxes from Trump in January, according to The Times.
The Justice Department launched an investigation into Trump's handling of national security information, and found that he probably had more documents at Mar-a-Lago. A top counterintelligence official from the DOJ went to Mar-a-Lago to collect the boxes after a grand jury subpoenaed the records.
The statement was signed by Bobb and said that all remaining classified material had been returned.
That was not the case. There were 26 boxes of records recovered when the FBI searched Trump's Florida residence.
It's not clear if Bobb knew Trump was still in possession of government records when she signed the June letter, and legal experts pointed out that she may need to hire her own lawyer.
Both of them will have to be interviewed about the documents that were still there. They are in a bad situation.
Weissmann said that it also means making attorneys get attorneys.
Requests for comment were not responded to.
Business Insider has an article on it.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
