Donald Trump’s legal challenges got more complicated as yet another attorney quit his team. The former president is now confronted with a growing number of lawsuits while his legal team steadily diminishes.
On Friday, lawyer Jim Trusty withdrew from Trump’s defamation lawsuit against CNN, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
Filed in October, Trump’s lawsuit seeks $475 million in damages and accuses the network of deliberately undermining his political career by reporting his numerous false statements and lies regarding the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
Trusty also left Trump’s legal defense team for charges related to mishandling classified documents and providing false statements to federal officials.
However, even before this, there were existing issues among Trump’s legal staff, reportedly causing internal conflicts that hindered their ability to effectively defend the former president in the classified documents case. Trusty and lawyer Jim Parlatore, who resigned from Trump’s team two weeks ago, specifically had concerns about Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s senior adviser and in-house counsel, as reported by The Guardian.
Trusty and Parlatore held such strong disdain for Epshteyn that they began withholding information from him. Trusty also expressed frustration over having to seek Epshteyn’s approval for all his decisions, considering him more focused on Trump’s public relations matters rather than legal concerns.
Trump faces a total of 37 charges related to unauthorized possession of national defense information, making false statements, and conspiring to obstruct justice. Another Trump lawyer, Christopher Kise, tried persuading Trump to return the documents he took from the White House and seek a settlement with the Department of Justice. However, this proposal was rejected by more combative members of Trump’s team, according to a report by The Washington Post.
Furthermore, Trump is under investigation in both Washington, D.C., and Georgia for his alleged involvement in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
In addition to these ongoing challenges, Trump has recently been indicted on 34 counts of business fraud in New York related to hush-money payments made during the 2016 election. He has also been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and has faced two separate defamation lawsuits. With his legal options dwindling, Trump finds himself in need of substantial legal assistance.
