The lawyer, Christopher Kise, was smart…..
He got paid UPFRONT….
Trump should have taken the deal and given the classidifed stuff back….
He didn’t….
He’s gotten arrested for his poor judgement ……
But Trump was not interested after listening to other lawyers who urged a more pugilistic approach, so Kise never approached prosecutors, three people briefed on the matter said. A special counsel was appointed months later.
Kise, a former solicitor general of Florida who was paid $3 million upfront to join Trump’s team last year, declined to comment.
That quiet entreaty last fall was one of many occasions when lawyers and advisers sought to get Trump to take a more cooperative stance in a bid to avoid what happened Friday. The Justice Department unsealed an indictment including more than three dozen criminal counts against Trump for allegedly keeping and hiding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.
Trump, 77, now faces the most legally perilous moment of his life playing out in a federal court — charges that could bring decades in prison. He pleaded not guilty in Miami on Tuesday and vowed to fight the charges….
What’s worse for Trump’s lawyers?
Throughout the documents investigation, which is being led by the special counsel Jack Smith, many employees at Mar-a-Lago were interviewed about Mr. Trump by Mr. Smith’s team at a time when, like Mr. Nauta, they were being represented by lawyers paid by Mr. Trump’s political action committee.
Some of the lawyers Mr. Trump hired to defend him in the case have also wound up being questioned by the government and may appear as witnesses as well….
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The indictment also makes reference to “Trump Representative 1,” who was said in the indictment to have sent a message to Ms. Michael in late 2021, searching for an answer about how many boxes Mr. Trump was planning on returning to the archives. That representative was the lawyer Alex Cannon, according to two people familiar with the matter….
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The indictment also mentions two lawyers, Trump Attorney 1 and Trump Attorney 2, who told Mr. Trump that they needed to conduct a search to comply with a May grand jury subpoena demanding the return of all classified material in his possession….
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The indictment also mentions a third lawyer — Trump Attorney 3 — who signed an attestation, at Mr. Corcoran’s request, certifying that a “diligent search” of “the boxes that were removed from the White House to Florida” had been conducted and that “any and all responsive documents” had been found.
Prosecutors say the attestation signed by that lawyer, Christina Bobb, was false because Mr. Trump had already directed Mr. Nauta to move several boxes in a way that kept them from being searched….