Global Courant 2023-05-21 05:03:58
WASHINGTON (AP) — An attorney who left Donald Trump’s legal team last week attributed his decision Saturday to strategic disagreements with a close adviser to the former president.
Timothy Parlatorewho had been a key defense attorney for Trump in a Justice Department special counsel investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents at his Florida estatetold CNN in an interview Saturday that there were “certain individuals who made defending the president far more difficult than it needed to be.”
He named Boris Epshteyn, another attorney and top Trump adviser in multiple criminal investigations, whom he accused of “doing everything to try to block us from doing what we could to defend the president.”
Parlatore announced on Wednesday that he was resigning from Trump’s legal team, a move that comes as a result of the investigation Special Prosecutor Jack Smith shows signs of winding down and is nearing a decision on whether or not to press charges against the former president. His comments on Saturday provided additional context for the decision.
In a statement responding to Parlatore’s comments, a Trump spokesman said: “Mr. Parlatore is no longer part of the legal team. His statements regarding the current members of the legal team are baseless and categorically false.”
In his interview, Parlatore said Epshteyn had served as a “filter” to prevent the legal team from getting information about the investigation from or to Trump.
He also said that Epshteyn had resisted the idea that months ago the legal team had staged a search of Trump’s properties in Bedminster, New Jersey, for potentially additional classified documents, and that he had obstructed a defense strategy aimed at “(Attorney General) Merrick”. Garland on the best way to handle this case. Parlatore was one of the authors of a letter last month to the chairman of the House intelligence committee outlining a range of possible defenses in the investigation.
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“It’s hard enough fighting DOJ, and in this case special counsel, but when you also have people in the tent who are also trying to undermine you, block you and really make sure I can’t do what I know that I have to act as a lawyer,” said Parlatore.
“And getting into fights like this detracts from what is necessary to defend the customer and in the end it was not in the best interest of the customer so I made the decision to withdraw,” he added please.
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