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Infighting Trump lawyers plotted 'murder-suicide pact': report
June 1, 2023 7:54AM ET
Donald Trump (Photo: White House photographer)
Donald Trump's defense lawyers reportedly engaged in a "murder-suicide pact" to protect themselves, much as top Justice Department officials allegedly had as he attempted to overturn his 2020 election loss.
The former president's legal team in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case have been embroiled in interpersonal conflict for months, and the bitterness and mistrust toward co-counsel and Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn curdled so badly that some lawyers agreed to a pact where if one attorney was fired, the rest would quit in solidarity, reported The Guardian.
One top lawyer, Tim Parlatore, abruptly resigned last month over his disagreements with Epshteyn, whom he accused of attempting to interfere with the legal team's efforts to locate classified documents at Trump properties and lying to both other attorneys and the former president.
Epshteyn was recently questioned by special counsel Jack Smith, and Parlatore and Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran have testified before a grand jury in the classified documents case.
The legal team feels confident that Parlatore won't turn on Trump, according to The Guardian, after a transcript showed he told a grand jury the ex-president had allowed him to search freely for any remaining documents last year at his properties.
But six sources familiar with the situation told the newspaper that efforts to remove Epshteyn from the case had failed after months of worsening relations, and he remains on the team while Parlatore had resigned.
Last year, former acting deputy attorney general Bill Donoghue told the Jan. 6 committee that top Justice Department officials, along with then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone, had agreed to resign en masse if Trump made Jeffrey Clarke, an environmental lawyer with the department, the acting attorney general and allowed him to send a letter to states about election fraud.
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