Speaker 1: It has been a wild week for the failed former president.
Pictures of documents in his toilet are published.
The FBI raided his house.
He had to testify, be deposed by the attorney general.
Letitia James in New York this morning at which we now learned Donald Trump pleaded
the fifth on every question, something he used to say, only the mob and guilty people
did.
And now there's an extraordinary new report from Rolling Stone that Donald Trump is desperately
seeking not companionship, but a criminal defense lawyer.
After that FBI raid inside Trump's frantic hunt for killer criminal defense attorneys
behind closed doors this summer, Trump and his advisers have been narrowing the short
list of criminal defense attorneys he'd need to take on the Justice Department.
The former president has had preliminary conversations with Kim Par Latorre, a lawyer best known
for successfully representing an accused war criminal about possible legal strategies.
Should the Department of Justice escalate its probe or hit Trump with charges?
Trump's conversations with PAs, Latorre and other newly retained attorneys are part of
his broader push to assemble yet another new legal team, both for current legal woes and
any future ones.
Coming up from the FBI and Biden era Department of Justice, Trump has been quizzing confidants.
What do you think of specific criminal defense attorneys throwing out names big and obscure?
In other words, as one adviser describes it, Trump is conducting The Apprentice avoid federal
prison addition.
Monday's FBI raid of Mar a Lago will likely intensify that search.
Intensify that search.
We are going to potentially see a Donald Trump over the next couple of weeks that is unlike
any that we have seen before.
Now, in terms of representing Trump, there's this question of Trump is known for not paying
his attorneys.
So why would an attorney agree to work for Donald Trump?
Well, there's two different answers to that question.
One, even if they assume they're not going to get paid because Trump, stiffs, people,
it might be worth it, essentially pro bono, not deliberately pro bono, but essentially
pro bono after the fact for the notoriety of representing a former president, that would
be one answer.
The second part of it is that, at least for now, we still believe that the Republican
National Committee is paying Donald Trump's legal bills.
Remember that early last week or late the week before, I mentioned to you that the RNC
gave Trump an ultimatum.
If you declare yourself a candidate for 2024 before the midterms, we will stop paying your
legal bills.
And it seems that the RNC has decided both, number one, that it would be bad for their
midterm chances if Donald Trump declared his candidacy too early.
And number two, that they would rather pay his legal bills than to have him be, I guess,
not represented by attorneys in many of the different problems that he's having.
So it's going to be a wild couple of weeks.
People have been e-mailing me, saying, what's the timeline on the next thing?
Like, okay, there's been a raid, what's the next thing?
When is the next thing?
We don't know the answer to that.
But the bad news for Trump simply
does
not stop.