Trump will have trouble finding lawyers qualified to defend him in Florida: report
June 08, 2023
One of the first challenges former President Donald Trump will face now that he has been indicted for the mishandling of classified information in the special counsel investigation of Mar-a-Lago is that he needs to assemble a legal team — and the trial will be taking place in South Florida, rather than Washington, D.C., where people were expecting the case to be filed.
And that could be a problem, argued legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid on CNN Thursday, because there simply won't be a lot of lawyers willing and able to work for him.
"One of the things that struck out to me today as we pointed out what Trump is doing at Bedminster is one of the aides that was at the center of this, Walt Nauta, was with him in Bedminster," said anchor Kaitlan Collins. "What is Tuesday going to look like? It raises a question about what the legal team will look like on Tuesday, who goes in with him."
"That's a great question," said Reid. "Off the top of my head, I believe only one of his attorneys is barred in Florida. Depending on which legal team is taking this week, one or two people barred in Florida. But they will likely be looking, and I know some folks who have even volunteered to potentially be on the case down there, thinking it would be interesting. Hey, it could even be an adventure to join this case. I said, you have no idea. They will absolutely likely need to bring in additional counsel in Florida, people with expertise in this matter who are barred down there, who know the judges. So it will be interesting to see."
"As we know, he has had a little bit of difficulty retaining lawyers," Reid continued. "There are a lot of law firms who won't take him on. They're worried their bills won't get paid. But there are some interesting constitutional questions here. But he will absolutely have to recruit likely one or two more lawyers, because I don't think he has the right team to bring this in Florida."
Conservative attorney George Conway interjected to concur.
"Not only he has had difficulty — not only has he had difficulty obtaining and retaining lawyers, the lawyers that he has are mostly witnesses against him," said Conway. "So they can't. They can't. There is a lawyer advocacy rule that you cannot be an advocate and a witness in the same trial. So these guys are conflicted out."
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