Trump’s Lawyers Quit Him

“Butch Bowers” sounds like the name of the bully in an Our Gang comedy.

Photograph: Mary Ann Chastain/AP

But by all accounts he is, in fact, a smart, experienced ultra-competent trial lawyer who works at Miller Law Group, a super respectable law firm. So after years of crackpot sycophant attorneys like Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell and Lin Wood, Donald Trump finally hired excellent counsel for his upcoming (second) impeachment trial.

Except they’ve apparently all quit, days before they are supposed to file statements with the United States Senate.

Bowers and four other lawyers on Trump’s defense team have all walked out. What could have caused the exodus? After all, the fix is in: 45 Senate Republicans have gone on the record saying they are going to acquit the ex-prez on charges of inciting the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. A dream case for lawyers: High-profile, so they’ll get a lot of publicity, and a guaranteed win, no matter how they conduct themselves at the “trial.” Nobody’s talking yet about why everybody walked out, so your guess is as good as mine, but here are my two guesses just the same:

  • Trump has already reneged on payment. For sure, these five lawyers are expensive, and they must have stipulated a fee when they entered into their “relationship” with Donald. But one thing Donald is famous for is his disregard for contracts and payments. For fifty years he has left a trail of stiffed contractors, unpaid workers and broken promises. No reason to think he’s going to become honorable at this late date.
  • Trump wants to dictate trial strategy. He has famously indicated over the years that he knows more than the generals, more than the National Weather Service, more than the entire intelligence community, so I’m sure he thinks he knows more than a bunch of lawyers. He was probably demanding that his “defense” should consist of a.) insisting he didn’t say the things he said on television on the morning of January 6th, and b.) repeating the claim that he won the election in a landslide and it was then stolen from him, a statement debunked so many times even Giuliani wouldn’t try to use it in court.

Whatever it is, I’m grateful that the circus surrounding it is now nothing more than another episode of Celebrity Apprentice (with Trump as the “apprentice”), and not another humiliating degradation of our government.

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