Looks like one of Donald Trump’s lawyers is going down with him in the classified document scandal
It’s never a good idea to be Donald Trump’s attorney. Just ask Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Lin Wood, John Eastman, and other former Trump lawyers how that worked out for them – if they have the time to speak to you while they’re busy fighting off their own legal troubles. Now Trump has a new crop of lawyers, it looks like one of them is already in serious legal trouble.
Before the DOJ sent the FBI into Donald Trump’s home with a search warrant this week for the classified documents Trump had stolen, it first tried asking nicely. This partially worked back in June, when Trump’s team surrendered some of the stolen documents. But when the Feds determined that Trump was still holding on to additional classified documents, that’s when it went into his home to get them. Here’s the kicker, though.
Back in June, one of Trump’s lawyers signed a statement claiming that all of the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago had been returned, according to the New York Times. Oops. That’s textbook obstruction of justice, and it helps explain why obstruction was listed on the warrant as one of the felonies that was being investigated.
So which Trump lawyer signed the document? The report doesn’t say. It’s not at all clear who decided to leak this piece of information to the media, or why. It’s possible that one of Trump’s lawyers could be using this to try to get rid of another of Trump’s lawyers. But given that the name has been withheld, it feels more likely that the DOJ has given this information to the media. It helps justify in the court of public opinion why the DOJ ultimately took the documents by force. And it sends a signal to the unnamed Trump lawyer that he or she is in serious legal trouble and should consider cooperating.
Even if the lawyer only signed the document because Trump falsely told the lawyer that the documents had been returned, the lawyer is still in a jam. Attorney-client privilege doesn’t cover crimes that an attorney and client commit together, so even if the attorney was misled by Trump about this, the attorney will seemingly still have to testify against Trump about it in order to be in the clear.
In any case, regardless of who leaked this and why, it means that yet another of Donald Trump’s lawyers is in deep legal trouble. But will this lawyer cooperate against Trump or go down with him? We’ll see.
