Trump attorney resigns from defense team in special counsel investigations

Timothy Parlatore, one of the attorneys who represented former President Donald J. Trump in the federal investigations into Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has resigned from the former’s legal team. president.

In a brief interview on Wednesday, Mr Parlatore declined to discuss the specific reasons for his departure, saying it had nothing to do with the merits of either inquiry – both of which are led by special counsel, Jack Smith. Mr Parlatore said he informed Mr Trump directly of his decision and that he left the legal team on good terms with the former president.

His departure was previously reported by CNN.

Mr. Parlatore’s withdrawal from dual special counsel cases leaves Mr. Trump with an attorney short at a time when prosecutors under Mr. Smith appear to be nearing the end of their sprawling grand jury investigations and may be nearing a decision on whether not press charges.

Two other lawyers – James Trusty and John Rowley – will continue to lead the charge in representing Mr Trump in both cases for now.

Mr Parlatore informed Mr Trump’s team on Monday that he expected to withdraw, according to a person familiar with the events.

Since last summer and until recently, Mr. Parlatore played a key role in Mr. Trump to use attorney-client privilege and executive privilege to limit the scope of testimony from a series of witnesses who appeared before grand juries hearing evidence in both cases.

Time and time again, in sealed files and in closed-door hearings, Mr. Parlatore and his colleagues attempted to assert privileges on Mr. Trump’s behalf in the hope that the testimony of top Trump aides, such as Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff, and former deputy President Mike Pence. But their efforts had almost completely failed.

At one point, Mr. Parlatore himself was subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury investigating the documents case. During his appearance, he answered questions about the efforts of Mr. Trump’s legal team to comply with a Justice Department subpoena last May demanding the return of all classified material in the former president’s possession.

Among the things Mr. Parlatore said he discussed with the grand jury were searches — ordered by a judge in response to a Justice Department urging — that he oversaw late last year at several of Mr. Trump’s properties, including Trump Tower in New York; Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, NJ; and a storage facility in West Palm Beach, Fla. While searching the storage location, investigators found at least two more documents with secret markings.

Those searches followed an August search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, by the FBI, which led to the discovery of more than 100 classified documents that had not been returned in response to the earlier subpoena. .

Mr. Parlatore was placed on the legal team by Boris Epshteyn, who had served as a corporate lawyer of sorts, taking and negotiating contracts for lawyers. Mr Epshteyn has shown a penchant for bringing sunny news to Mr Trump despite dire circumstances, and creating a bottleneck for the lawyers in dealing with the client, according to several people familiar with the events.

Last month, Mr. Parlatore wrote a letter to Congress asking lawmakers to help move the documentary evidence away from prosecutors and give it to the intelligence community — a move that would, among other things, see the threat of criminal charges against Mr. Parlatore would have taken away. Trump.

The letter also appeared to preview some of Mr. Trump’s possible defenses in the documents case, noting that during his chaotic exit from the White House, aides “quickly boxed everything up and shipped it to Florida.” This hasty process, Mr. Parlatore argued, suggested that “White House institutional processes,” not “intentional decisions by President Trump,” were responsible for dragging out sensitive material.

Last week, Mr. Trump appeared to undermine those claims on live television by declaring at a CNN event at town hall that he had knowingly removed government documents from the White House and claimed he could take whatever he wanted with him as his personal property.

“I brought the documents,” he said at the event. “I can.”