Speaker 1: Early last week or middle of last week, I came to you and I told you that Donald
Trump is now conducting a frantic and frenetic search for criminal defense attorneys. Why? Well,
he and others increasingly believe that an indictment criminally is at least a real
possibility, real enough that he truly needs to have criminal defense attorneys ready to go.
It appears as though that search is not going particularly well, and there's a few reasons for
that. As The Washington Post reports, Trump is rushing to hire seasoned lawyers, but he keeps
hearing no. This is just an unbelievable line. The former president's current legal team includes
a Florida insurance lawyer who's never had a federal case, a past general counsel for
a parking garage company and a former host at far right One America News. Can you imagine that
as the former president of the United States, this is the struggle that you are experiencing.
He is rushing to assemble a team of respected lawyers, but the answer they keep hearing is no.
The struggle to find expert legal advice puts Trump in a bind as he faces potential criminal
exposure from a records dispute with the National Archives. Everyone is saying no, said a prominent
Republican lawyer who, like some others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential
conversations. Longtime confidence and advisers of Trump have grown worried about Trump's current
stable of lawyers, noting most of them have little to no experience in cases of this type,
according to two people familiar with the discussions. Taylor Boudreaux, which Trump
spokesman, defended the quality of the former president's legal team in a statement Tuesday.
But it is not particularly good. John Sale, a prominent Florida defense attorney who worked
on the Watergate prosecution team, said he turned down representing Trump because he
didn't have enough time. You have to evaluate whether you want to take it. It's not like a
DUI. It's representing the former president of the U.S. and maybe the next one in what's one of the
highest visibility cases ever. So normally, as the article says, it's prestigious and creates
a lot of publicity when you represent a former president. But this is a very different situation,
and we have to be able to kind of just say we know what's going on here. Right. I mean, big picture,
look at what has happened to the people that defend Trump. You end up disbarred.
You end up subpoenaed. You end up indicted. You're left with an unpaid legal bill. At the end of the
day, you become ridiculed. I mean, Sidney Powell, I am sure, and Sidney Powell is probably wackier
than the people that they've been trying to get to represent Trump. Sidney Powell, I'm sure,
believed this is my ticket to legal fame. This is my ticket to legal riches. I'm going to get so
many clients and it'll be so prestigious and the PR will be great. And then she starts going around
with Rudy Giuliani and doing these completely humiliate, humiliating appearances everywhere.
And she ends up disbarred. And I think it was New York and D.C., I don't remember. Off
the top of my head, it doesn't go particularly well. Look at what happened to Michael Cohen.
Look at what happened to Giuliani, Sidney Powell, I mentioned and others of
Eric. I forget the guy's last name and all these different people who have represented Trump. It
doesn't go well and he often doesn't pay. Now, we learned that the Republican National Committee
has been paying some of Trump's legal bills for a period of time. And we talked about why when
we discuss that. But it is not a guarantee that you will even be paid for your work.
Remember the story about one of the law firms that Trump had representing him years ago? They
would always send to people whenever they had a meeting because Trump would often lie about what
he said to his own attorneys in previous meetings. So they wanted two people there so that they could
counter the falsehoods and correct the lies. These were confidential meetings with his own lawyers,
and Trump would still lie. And of course, as a more general thing in representing Trump, one of
the biggest problems with him as a client is he can't just shut up. He can't just say nothing.
And if you think back to the Russia probe, the Mueller probe, whatever you want to call it,
if Trump had never said anything and not attempted to obstruct or tamper with witnesses or any of it,
Trump just said, I am busy being president. I will allow the investigation to run its course.
It would have been over much faster and Trump would have been under much less
legal jeopardy. And so it's hilarious. Typically, representing a former president
would be a tremendously prestigious and great thing to do and lucrative. But it seems like
representing Trump is none of those things and couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.