Former President Donald Trump remains relentless in his search for a lawyer who can emulate the “scorched earth” viciousness of the legendary Roy Cohn, the New York Times reported today.
The report described the legal team Trump has assembled to handle his New York indictment as “emblematic of his relentless search for the perfect lawyer — and of his frequent replacement of his lawyers when they fail to live up to his ideal for how the perfect lawyer should operate.”
The newspaper cited interviews with a half-dozen people who either represented Trump or were involved in his legal cases in recent years.
“Mr. Trump has long been obsessed with lawyers: obsessed with finding what he thinks are good lawyers, and obsessed with ensuring that his lawyers defend him zealously in the court of public opinion,” the Times reported.
“His lawyers’ own foibles are seldom disqualifying, so long as they defend him in the manner he desires.”
“That often means measuring up to the example of Roy M. Cohn, Mr. Trump’s first fixer-lawyer, who represented him in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mr. Cohn, whose background included being indicted himself and who was eventually disbarred, earned a reputation for practicing with threats, scorched-earth attacks and media manipulation.”
The report also described Trump’s impulsiveness in his quest to find another Cohn.
“He has occasionally hired lawyers after only the briefest phone call, knowing little to nothing about their background but having been impressed by a quick introduction or by seeing them praise him on Fox News.”
The lawyers who sat with Trump last week at his historic courtroom appearance in New York were Todd Blanche, Boris Epshteyn, Joe Tacopina and Susan R. Necheles. The report described the reaction to them by one of Trump’s best-known erstwhile legal defenders.
“Another lawyer who has worked with Mr. Trump — his former attorney general, William P. Barr — shook his head at the sight of the defense table on Tuesday. Mr. Barr, who sat for an interview with the House select committee investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in office, explained that lawyers working for Mr. Trump tend to come to one conclusion.”
“Lawyers inevitably are sorry for taking on assignments with him,” Mr. Barr said on Fox News. “They spend a lot of time before grand juries or depositions themselves.”
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