WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyer who quit donald trump‘s legal team said last week that his decision on Saturday was due to a strategic disagreement with the former president’s aides.
Timothy ParratoreHe was Trump’s lead attorney in the Justice Department’s special counsel investigation. Classified Documents Could Be Mishandled at Florida MansionSaid CNN “There were certain people who made it harder than it should be to defend the president,” he said in an interview Saturday.
Pointing to another attorney and top adviser to President Trump in multiple criminal investigations, Boris Epstein, he said: I am doing my best,” he said.
Parlatore said on Wednesday that he was stepping down from Trump’s legal team, a move by investigators. Special Counsel Jack Smith shows signs of convergence and is nearing a decision on whether to indict the former president. His comments on Saturday gave further context to the decision.
In a statement in response to Parratorre’s comments, President Trump’s press secretary said: Parlatore is no longer a member of the legal team. His statements about current legal team members are baseless and completely false. “
In an interview, Mr. Paratore said Mr. Epstein acted as a “filter” that prevented his lawyers from getting information about the investigation from Mr. Trump.
He also said that Epstein resisted the idea of the defense team that organized a search of Trump’s property in Bedminster, N.J. It also said it sabotaged a national defense strategy aimed at “educating the Ask Garland how best to deal with this problem. Parlatore was one of the authors of a letter last month to the House Intelligence Committee chairman, outlining a series of possible defenses in the investigation.
“It’s hard enough to fight the Department of Justice, and in this case the Special Counsel, but if there are also people in the tent trying to undermine you, stop you and do what I know. It’s really hard not to, ‘I have to do it as a lawyer,’ Paratorre said.
“And when I get involved in such conflicts, it is to the detriment of what I need to do to protect my clients, and ultimately it is not in their best interests, so I have decided to withdraw. I did,” he added.