The Perils of Representing Defendant Trump

Gage Skidmore

On Thursday, the former president walked to the bank of cameras outside courtroom 1530 and proclaimed that he’s not able to testify in his own defense at the trial in New York City because he’s under a gag order. That’s not true. The gag order only prevents him from making out-of-court statements about witnesses, jurors, and certain court staff and their families. He retains his constitutional right to testify. What happened next was baffling. He turned to his lead defense lawyer for affirmation. Todd Blanche, evidently uncomfortable, both nodded his head for yes and shook it for no, but was heard saying “yeah”, with the rest of his sentence inaudible. 

I will not pretend to be an unbiased observer. Blanche has a reputation for being an excellent lawyer, unlike many of the attorneys the former president surrounds himself with (Alina Habba, anyone?) He’s a former federal prosecutor who earned his law degree at night school while working full time, becoming a partner at New York’s oldest law firm in 2017. Former colleagues have universally described him as a genuinely nice guy. Aitan Goelman, a former prosecutor who worked with Blanche at the Southern District of New York told New York Magazine: “There are some people who represent Trump who are terrible lawyers. There are some people who represent Trump who are terrible people. And Todd is neither of those things.” Mimi Rocah, the D.A. of Westchester County, told the same publication that “he was like the wonder kid” when she first met him when he was working as a paralegal. With that background, I watched the interaction outside the courtroom over and over again with a rising sense of anxiety.

Earlier in the week, the New York Times had published an article claiming that behind the scenes, the former president has made Blanche “the focus of his episodic wrath”. No matter that he changed his entire life and moved to Florida for his client – apparently that’s not enough. The article stated that Trump has “complained repeatedly about him in recent weeks”, deeming Blanche “insufficiently aggressive” because he won’t attack witnesses, the jury, and the judge in the New York case, like Alina Habba does. Of course he won’t, he’s a serious lawyer, not an idiot.

The Daily Beast also wrote about Blanche this week, imploring him to “heed your conscience, and your instincts, and the law…be sure that, at the end of trial in New York, it’s Trump, and not you, who goes to jail.” A guest on MSNBC’s Deadline White House described Blanche’s involvement in the case as “like this vanilla ice cream cone who’s being stomped on the sidewalk.” Lawrence O’Donnell called him a “broken man”. We’ve all been going through some things. Call it empathy, call it being too soft, call it everything that Donald Trump’s lacking as a human being. Someone has to represent the former president for the system to work, but why did it have to be the nice guy?

The Trump effect can be devastating for your legal career. Just ask John Eastman, who had his law license temporarily suspended in D.C. this week, following a similar suspension in California. The D.C. suspension will remain in place until California makes a decision on whether he’ll be barred from practicing in the state, where he faces 11 disciplinary charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Eastman was also indicted in Georgia for his attempts to subvert the election and is an unindicted co-conspirator in Jack Smith’s federal indictment of Donald Trump.

Eastman is just one of a long list of former Trump attorneys to find themselves on the other side of the law. Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis all pleaded guilty to charges stemming from Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis’ RICO indictment related to the plot to overthrow the 2020 election. Rudy Giuliani was also indicted in that probe but has not entered into a plea deal. Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen – a key witness in the current trial – was locked up for acts he described as directed by Donald Trump.

Giuliani, Eastman, and Ellis were among those indicted this week in Arizona in yet another 2020 election case, alongside attorneys Boris Epshteyn and Christina Bobb. Each easily fits Goelman’s description of being a “terrible person”. Representing Trump seems to be a dangerous game.

I’ll join the Daily Beast’s Mark Herrman in his plea to Todd Blanche: I really, really want you to lose this trial. But I don’t want you to lose your soul.

Yeah, it’s not easy having empathy. But it’s what differentiates us from MAGA, so I guess we’re stuck with it.