Trump is being brought down by bad lawyers: impeachment attorney

Speaking to CNN "New Day" Thursday morning, former impeachment lawyer Norm Eisen explained that Donald Trump is slowly being defeated, in part, due to really bad lawyering.

Over the past several months, the former president has fought the demand for the National Archives to hand over any documents or details submitted from his administration. According to Eisen, he hasn't done so very effectively.

Legal analysts have said that the likelihood of the court agreeing to hide the documents is slim because the exiting executive has waged executive privilege on anything involving the Jan. 6 attack. At the same time, the requests are coming from Congress, which has a constitutional responsibility to serve as a check on the other branch of government.

"He's failed at every level," Eisen said of Trump's efforts. "And the reason he has failed the Supreme Court road last night is because he simply did not make the showing that he needed to make in order to have these documents held back. It's a balancing test when you're talking about executive privilege, the right of a president to hold back documents. And you've got to show an overwhelming, compelling need for each individual document. And sometimes even a paragraph for a line on a document to be held back, and he just failed to do it. So, once again, Trump was brought down by lousy lawyering."

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Trump has struggled to find legal help after years of attorneys only partially being paid or being stiffed entirely. Another reason, according to Joe Scarborough, is that Trump makes for a terrible client because "he lies all the time." That makes him very difficult to defend.

Author and lawyer James Zirin penned the book Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits in which documented Trump's refusal to pay his bills.

"People often ask me: 'how can he bring 3,500 lawsuits or be involved in 3,500 lawsuits?'" the author said in 2019. "The answer is he didn't pay most of his lawyers ... He doesn't pay his lawyers. He doesn't pay his architects, doesn't pay his creditors, goes into bankruptcy."

Well-known lawyers have even turned down the former president. That then results in an inexperienced legal team to litigate executive privilege and other constitutional issues.

Now that the decision has been made, Eisen explained that there will likely be a trove of documents that Americans can see. The Jan. 6 probe isn't from a grand jury, so most of the documents should be public.

"I think, are going to provide further depth to the mosaic" of Jan. 6, Eisen continued. "They're putting together all the pieces of this terrible falsehood. One of the worst in American history — that that election was stolen and we saw the violence of Jan. 6 erupt as a result. Now they'll have call logs, they'll have memos, they'll have speech drafts, they'll have emails and other material from the core people in the White House who were talking to the president about this big lie. I think it will help them to advance the narrative."

He went on to say that the information will help go deeper into the president's inner circle with phone records to and from the White House and how all roads lead to the president.

"What he knew, what he did and didn't do.," said Eisen "These documents will help them very likely make the case and lead to dramatic televised hearings and a report that may very well have a criminal referral or referrals, including against the former president. These documents are absolutely critical inside information."

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