We know Donald Trump is having a hard time finding lawyers, but hiring one because he shows up on a conference call you’re participating in seems to be a bit dodgy. The snippet above, from a lengthy Washington Post piece outlining the extraordinary efforts federal officials took to reacquire government documents from Trump–virtually bending over backwards to accommodate his quirks–before turning to the court to get a search-and-seizure warrant to recover the information.
As noted by Rolling Stone, working for the current version of Trump isn’t the high-roller lifestyle afforded to Michael Cohen as he paid off mistresses (and apparently did little else), collecting six-figure fees for his silence. Trump is having problems finding lawyer for a number of reasons:
- He doesn’t always pay his lawyers.
- He doesn’t follow his lawyers’ advice.
- He loudly and publicly undermines potential legal defenses.
- He continues to crime.
- He thinks the law doesn’t apply to him.
If you’re Evan Corcoran and Trump asks you to join his legal team–after talking with him for the first time on a conference call–why would you agree? It’s not for the money; that’s not guaranteed. He’s offering you the job because every legit law firm with experience handling national security issues has turned him down, so he’s stuck with a former unremarkable US Attorney at a small firm in Baltimore who presided over a case that saw a key ally convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress.