Trump ‘Sidelines’ Competent Lawyer, Preferring To Let The Other Weirdos Take The Lead

The galaxy brains in Trumpland have struck again! Less than two weeks after former Florida Solicitor General Chris Kise scored a $3 million retainer fee from Trump’s Save America PAC, CNN scooped that the lawyer is being “sidelined” from the fight over documents seized in the August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago.

Kaitlan Collins reports that “The reason for the shift in Kise’s role remains unclear and he may instead focus his efforts on the other investigations Trump is facing, which range from his business practices to the January 6 insurrection.” Which could be true, we guess … although you hire the Florida lawyer because he knows his way around the Florida courts. It seems a little far-fetched to suggest that they’re going to dispatch this guy to New York to fend off Attorney General Tish James’s state fraud claims. And as for the DC investigations into Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection, his DC-based lawyers Jim Trusty and Evan Corcoran seem to be taking the lead on that one, appearing last week to assert executive privilege over former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann’s testimony to a grand jury.

This appearance came after Corcoran and attorney John Rowley told Herschmann to invoke privilege himself, only to be told, “I certainly am not relying on any legal analysis from either of you or Boris [Epshteyn] who — to be clear — I think is an idiot.” Which is just fact check true, and also hints at the permanent state of trench war among Trump’s army of attorneys.

Retaining Kise, who resigned as a partner at the Tallahassee office of Foley & Lardner, was greeted by Trump’s supporters as something of a coup — and not the kind that gets you a grand jury. Between his reputation for stiffing his attorneys and his refusal to listen to their counsel, Trump had been unable to convince top-shelf talent to sign on. But Kise is a genuinely credible lawyer, who has argued before the US Supreme Court as well as Florida’s highest court, and would presumably bring order to the chaos of Trump’s suit before US District Judge Aileen Cannon, where his attorneys seemed unable to even figure out how to serve the government, much less secure pro hac vice for Jim Trusty and Evan Corcoran, his Maryland-based attorneys.

But then the Eleventh Circuit dropkicked Kise’s efforts to keep the classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago in the special master review, along the way suggesting that Judge Cannon’s legal reasoning was dogshit, and strongly implying that, if prosecutors want to challenge the special master appointment in its entirety, they’ll probably get a pretty warm reception with the appellate panel.

And meanwhile, whoever on Team Trump recommended Judge Raymond Dearie as a candidate for special master (that you, Boris?) is looking pretty goddamn stupid right about now. Because far from being old and slow or afflicted with the Fox-brain delusion that the FBI is the evil Deep State, Judge Dearie is acting with extreme dispatch, calling Trump out on his bullshit claims that the FBI planted evidence, and even forcing the former president to put up or shut up about executive privilege. No more generalized invocations of privilege, or kicking the can down the road claiming it’s a defense to be asserted at some future date.

Trump spox Taylor Budowich denied the report, telling CNN that “Chris Kise’s role as an important member of President Trump’s legal team remains unchanged, and any suggestion otherwise is untrue.” So you can take that one to the bank … if you like paying $50 in bounced check charges.

But why would Trump fire the guy he just hired? Particularly after cutting him a huge check, albeit from OPM? That makes no goddamn sense!

Is Kise getting the boot because he failed to win at the Eleventh Circuit? Did he refuse to put his name on an affidavit attesting that the love notes in Trump’s “My Favorite Dictators” scrapbook were personal property? Did he tell Trump to make a deal already and get rid of this thing because it’s a total loser dog of a case? Or did Corcoran kiss Trump square on the lips and say, “You’re looking so slim and handsome today, Mister President, Sir. Let me be your one and only lawyer, and I’ll make all your fantasies come true”?

All of these things are plausible. Or there’s always the possibility that Trump just fired Kise for the hell of it. After all, what does he care? He was paying him with funny money grifted from the rubes, and there’s always plenty more where that came from.

OPEN THREAD!

[CNN]

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