Less than two weeks before his moment of impeachment, former President Trump has separated his tactics with two key members of his legal team: South Carolina attorney Butch Bowers, who pretended to be the lead attorney, and Deborah Barbier are no longer on his team, Trump said spokesman Jason Miller on Saturday night.
“Democrats’ efforts to accuse a president who has already left are absolutely unconstitutional and very bad for our country. In fact, forty-five senators have already voted that it is unconstitutional. We did a lot of work, but we didn’t make a final decision from our legal team, which will be made shortly,” Miller said.
A Trump adviser told CBS News that mutual resolution. CBS News reached out to Bowers and Barbier for comment.
CNN, which first reported the news, also said three lawyers had left the legal team.
Trump’s political trial at the time of the indictment is scheduled to begin on February 9. After counting the votes of polling stations, the last step in asserting the victory of President Joe Biden. A crowd of his supporters broke into the U. S. Capitol, sending lawmakers to flee and delay counting for about six hours.
Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was a public figure in the former president’s failed war to nullify the election results, said he would not be part of Trump’s legal trial team. Trump because he was at the rally, as a witness, legal ethics regulations would forbid me to represent the president as a prosecutor in the trial,” Giuliani told CBS News on January 18.
Trump’s star lawyers in his first political trial, adding Trump’s long-time lawyer Jay Sekulow of Trump and former White House attorney Pat Cipollone are not protecting him this time. Cipollone, in particular, one of the White House officials that an Organization of Republican Senators called after the attack to convince them to stay until Trump resigned, an assistant to Senator Mike Lee said on January 7.
When asked who would make up Trump, Miller said the team will most likely make an announcement “in the coming days. “
Senator Lindsey Graham announced last week that Bowers, a tough Colombian lawyer with an impressive record of protecting Republican politicians, would be Trump’s “leader. “Miller showed that Bowers would join the team on a tweet on January 21. .
Bowers represented former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford when the legislature thought of accusing him after admitting that he had been a liar to his assistants for walking the Appalachian trail while with his lover in Argentina, but eventually Sanford was censored.
Bowers also represented Trump’s best friend Nikki Haley when she was accused of illegal lobbying ethics while still in the South Carolina Legislature. Haley was exonerated in this investigation.
Bowers is a smart-status member of the South Carolina Bar association and the District of Columbia Bar, according to its directories. In the past, Bowers had told the South Carolina Post and Courier that he was looking ahead to represent the former president.
Barbier, who runs a small business in Colombia, joined the legal team this week, according to the South Carolina Post-Courier. In perhaps his most prominent case, Barbier defended Joey Meeks, a friend of shooter Emanuel AME Dylann Roof. Meeks, who pleaded guilty to telling others not to share with the government that Roof was the massacre, was sentenced to 27 months in prison, according to the Post-Courier.
Barbier also defended a tough South Carolina political agent accused in 2017 of conspiracy and illegal lobbying at the Statehouse, the Post-Courier reported. This case was finally dropped.
Kathryn Watson contributed to this report.