Trump Lawyers

Rudy Giuliani

John Dowd

Leading Trump’s legal team. 

Trump Lawyer Forwards Email Echoing Secessionist Rhetoric NYTimes  August 16, 2017, 4 days after Charlottesville “Unite the Right”

Michael Cohen

Personal Attorney, under investigation hired Stephen M. Ryan to defend him in Russian investigation. The Hill

Congress asks Trump attorney Michael Cohen to turn over documents, testify “on May 30, 2017, Cohen refused to do so.” Washington Post Video   Trump’s personal attorney hires attorney: Report The Hill June 16, 2017

Cohen is mentioned in the Steele Dossier as being key to the Trump-Russia communication and cover-up.

Marc E. Kasowitz

Defense Attorney  retained by Trump to defend him in Russian investigation. “A member of the New York bar who has represented Trump in his business dealings for 15 years, was brought on board by the president last month to provide personal legal advice relating to the Russian inquiry now being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller. The appointment has placed Kasowitz at the center of the legal maelstrom over the investigation into potential collusion between Russia and elements of Trump’s presidential campaign. An investigation by the Guardian has found that Kasowitz’s law firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres, legally represented the owners of the former New York Times building in Times Square, Manhattan, in a 2015 deal in which part of the property was sold to Kushner for $296m. The Washington Post has reported that a subsequent loan of $285m from Deutsche Bank to Kushner Companies, relating to the purchase of the building, could fall under the remit of the Mueller investigation given Deutsche Bank’s scandal-riven reputation. The involvement of Kasowitz’s firm as a key legal player in the initial sale adds a further possible twist as the special counsel’s inquiry gathers momentum. Questions have already been raised about possible conflicts of interest between the lawyer’s role as Trump’s private attorney in the Russian inquiry and his work for various other clients, among them Russia’s largest bank OJSC Sberbank, which he represents in a corporate dispute lodged in US federal court.”

(2) Corallo resigned because he feared he was being lied to, he couldn’t stand the in-fighting and he opposed the new anti-Mueller strategy.

(3) Kasowitz leaving underscores one of those complaints: there are clearly factions in Trump’s legal team, and it’s making it ineffective.

(4) Broadly speaking, those resigning or pulling back from the team are PR-expert attorneys, and the people staying on are criminal lawyers.

(5) This suggests that *some* of the in-fighting may have to do with the question of whether this is a “PR situation” or a criminal defense.

(6) The criminal attorneys on the team are winning because they’re *right*—this is a criminal investigation and Trump is a criminal suspect.

(7) Corallo’s third complaint, about Mueller, speaks for itself: he believes—and is right—that it’s a losing strategy and an unethical one.

(8) But I want to focus here on Corallo’s claim he was being “lied to.” He didn’t mean by Trump—that would breach attorney-client privilege.

(9) So Corallo was telling media that he was either being lied to by the rest of the legal team *or* by non-client witnesses close to Trump.

(10) Thing is—and I say this as a longtime criminal attorney—you never quit a case because the witnesses are lying. Why? Well—they often do.

(11) Any attorney would read Corallo’s extraordinary statement—therefore—as a claim that *other members of the legal team* are lying to him.

(12) Of the Trump attorneys veteran enough to have info they might withhold from Corallo or mislead him about, Kasowitz is a prime suspect.

(13) This suggests the possibility Kasowitz is not “out” because of a lack of criminal litigation experience or his recent bizarre behavior.

(15) But no—*much* more likely is that Kasowitz’s exit has to do with information about that he accidentally dropped publicly.

(16) Recall that had been personally assured by the President that he wouldn’t be fired. Then Trump suddenly changed his mind.

(17) What Kasowitz has done is make the extraordinary boast that he was the one who changed the President’s mind about firing .

(19) Keep in mind presidents never—ever—fire all U.S. attorneys at once and without warning because it dramatically destabilizes government.

(20) Nor is there any indication that Mr. Trump planned to do this prior to Kasowitz telling him that was “going to get him.”

(21) Kasowitz’s warning to Trump strongly suggests Trump’s firing of *all* his U.S. Attorneys nationally was an attempt to Obstruct Justice.

(22) I and others believe the reported facts establish that Trump fired not just but *all* U.S. Attorneys to protect himself.

(23) Given that the case was investigating looks to now be related to Mueller’s probe, you can bet that Mueller knows it, too.

(24) It’s reasonable for an attorney observing recent news to infer that Mueller is investigating the reason for Trump’s firing of Bharara.

(25) So Marc Kasowitz has made himself into one of the *chief witnesses* in this aspect of the Mueller investigation into Trump-Russia ties.

(26) Neither Trump nor Kasowitz could therefore be fully candid with Mark Corallo about prior conversations they had about Trump’s defense.

(27) This, then, is the top “candidate” for the sort of lie Mark Corallo might have been complaining about when he quit Trump’s legal team.

(28) And this better explains—than mere “email intemperance” does—why Kasowitz would need to pull back from a case he could be a witness in.

(29) So Corallo’s exit (a) suggests Trump’s legal team is falling apart; (b) it has moved to a criminal-defense footing; and (c) Trump…

(30) …could be in further MAJOR legal trouble because of the actions of his own attorney. So yes: the Corallo/Kasowitz exits MATTER. {end}

 Jay Sekulow

Under Investigation June 28, 2017 Representing Trump in the Russian investigation, top attorney for the Christian Right and PhD from Pat Robertson‘s school.

“Authorities in two states are looking into a nonprofit led by an attorney to Donald Trump, after the Guardian reported it had steered tens of millions of dollars to the attorney, his family and their businesses. Josh Stein, the attorney general of North Carolina, and Eric Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, said on Wednesday they would be examining the operations of Jay Sekulow’s group Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism.”  The Guardian June 28, 2017

“A member of Donald Trump’s legal team has denied the president’s own assertion that he is under investigation for obstruction of justice. Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, appeared across the major political talk shows on Sunday. Speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation, he said: “The fact of the matter is the president has not been and is not under investigation.”  The Guardian  June 18, 2017

Jay Sekulow: Obama Should Be “Held Accountable” For The “Soft Coup” Against Trump Feb 19, 2017 www.zerohedge.com

The Secrets of Jay Sekulow by Tony Mauro, November 1, 2005 

Phone scripts after the 2008 financial crisis detail the manipulation used by solicitors for donations to his ACLJ and CASE (Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism)  foundations, which he took millions from to fund his lavish lifestyle. “Sekulow, the leading Supreme Court advocate of the Christian right…Former Attorney General John Ashcroft is part of Sekulow’s orbit…That less-known side of Sekulow was revealed in several interviews with former associates of his and in hundreds of pages of court and tax documents reviewed by Legal Times. Critics say Sekulow’s lifestyle is at odds with his role as the head of a charitable organization that solicits small donations for legal work in God’s name…Sekulow argued his first case before the Supreme Court, a 1987 dispute involving the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners, which tried to stop Jews for Jesus adherents from distributing leaflets at LAX…At the time of his successful Supreme Court debut, Sekulow was also dealing with a trial of another sort. His private practice, which focused on creating tax shelters and financial deals for the renovation of historic buildings in Atlanta, collapsed when investors sued him for securities violations related to the renovation deals. He and his firm filed for bankruptcy protection in 1987, and more than a dozen creditors filed suit..But Sekulow bounced back up, in part by creating a new nonprofit, Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, which still exists today and serves as an important conduit for funds that finance Sekulow’s activities…It was 1990 when Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson decided to create the ACLJ, and it was no accident that its acronym was one letter away from that of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Someone has got to stop the ACLU in court,” said Robertson when he launched the organization. Robertson continues as unpaid president of the ACLJ’s board to this day and frequently invites Sekulow to appear on his “700 Club” show on the Christian Broadcasting Network. Sekulow became chief counsel of the ACLJ in 1991 but did not fold the Atlanta-based CASE into its operations, giving him an independent source of funds.

Trump lawyer’s firm steered millions in donations to family members, files show The Guardian

“In addition to using tens of millions of dollars in donations to pay Sekulow, his wife, his sons, his brother, his sister-in-law, his niece and nephew and their firms, CASE has also been used to provide a series of unusual loans and property deals to the Sekulow family.” An example of a call for donations: “Islamic extremists are headed in your direction, and you are most likely the main target,” Sekulow himself told people in a recorded message used in fundraising calls during 2011. Telemarketers were instructed to tell people who initially said they could not donate that Islamist extremists “will succeed if we don’t do something RIGHT AWAY.” If the person resisted a second time, the script said to tell them: “It sounds like you really WANT to help.”

Jay Sekulow’s Son Made Close to $1 Million From Family Charity   Jay Sekulow appointed his son as a ‘director’ of his religious nonprofit when the kid was just 18. His prior experience? An internship at Nickelodeon. July 3, 2017  The Daily Beast

Sheri Dillon

International and Moscow Award-Winning Law Firm Morgan Lewis, is representing Trump in his tax audit.