Two attorneys who represented former President Donald J. Trump in the classified documents investigation, James Trusty and John Rowley, resigned from his legal team the day after he was indicted. The attorneys left Mr. Trump’s defense team in a state of confusion as he faced the most serious legal threat of his career, a 37-count indictment. The charges accused him of illegally retaining documents after he left office containing some of the country’s most sensitive national security secrets and of conspiring with an aide to obstruct the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.
Mr. Trusty and Mr. Rowley issued a joint statement after Mr. Trump announced their departures on his social media platform, Truth Social. They wrote that they had tendered their resignations and that “It has been an honor to have spent the last year defending him,” and “we know he will be vindicated.”
Their departures came a month after the resignation of a third lawyer on Mr. Trump’s team, Timothy Parlatore. Mr. Trump announced he would be represented by a new lawyer, Todd Blanche, who is set to accompany Mr. Trump to his arraignment in Miami on Tuesday.
Mr. Trusty and Mr. Rowley were two of the three lawyers who attended a meeting with Justice Department officials, including the special counsel, Jack Smith, three days before the indictment. They had repeatedly complained about working with Boris Epshteyn, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers. It was partly the reason for their resignations. However, they are still on good terms with Mr. Trump.
On the other hand, Mr. Blanche, who also represents Mr. Epshteyn, represents both the former president and Mr. Epshteyn in the case against him in a Manhattan state court, which makes the situation complex.
Mr. Parlatore, who departed the team, directly blamed Mr. Epshteyn on CNN, and afterward, an aide to Mr. Trump insisted that the departures were not over internal dynamics.
The lawyers’ departures came at a time of serious legal vulnerability for Mr. Trump and highlighted how much his legal teams have been affected by factionalism and turnover over the years. When he was investigated by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, over possible conspiracy between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russian officials, his legal team shuffled multiple times, and when he was impeached a second time, he struggled to attract lawyers. Once he did, a number of them fought with one another.
