Trump lawyers have many potential conflicts and Jack Smith is noticing: report

Donald Trump has numerous attorneys for various criminal and civil matters, and Jack Smith has already raised a red flag about potential conflicts resulting from how the lawyers are paid or who they are representing, according to a New York Times report.

The former president could see his cases complicated by various conflicts, as it could result in replacing attorneys, which is never easy in the middle of any litigation, let alone a criminal case. The potential conflicts themselves include some of Trump's lawyers being named as unindicted co-conspirators in one of the federal criminal cases he's facing, the Times reported Saturday.

"M. Evan Corcoran, a lawyer who accompanied former President Donald J. Trump to court this week for his arraignment on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election, has given crucial evidence in Mr. Trump’s other federal case — the one accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents," wrote Alan Feuer, Ben Protess and Maggie Haberman. "Another lawyer close to Mr. Trump, Boris Epshteyn, sat for an interview with prosecutors this spring and could be one of the former president’s co-conspirators in the election tampering case."

The Times report continues:

"And Mr. Epshteyn’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, is defending Mr. Trump against both the documents and election case indictments. The legal team that Mr. Trump has assembled to represent him in the twin prosecutions by the special counsel, Jack Smith, is marked by a tangled web of potential conflicts and overlapping interests — so much so that Mr. Smith’s office has started asking questions."

The report also makes the common comparison to Trump's case resembling some mob cases.

"While it is not uncommon for lawyers in complex matters — like large mob cases or financial inquiries — to wear many hats or to play competing roles, the Gordian knot of intertwined imperatives in the Trump investigations is particularly intricate and insular. Some of the lawyers involved in the cases are representing both charged defendants and uncharged witnesses. At least one could eventually become a defendant, and another could end up as a witness in one case and Mr. Trump’s defender in a different one," it states.

That's not all:

"All of that sits atop another thorny fact: Many of the lawyers are being paid by Save America PAC, Mr. Trump’s political action committee, which has itself been under government scrutiny for months. Some of the witnesses those lawyers represent work for the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump’s company, but their legal defense has not been arranged by the company, but rather by Mr. Trump’s own legal team, a person with knowledge of the matter said," the reporters wrote.

Read the article here.