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Meet The Sleazebags, Traffic Court Lawyers, Criminal Defendants And Even Some Normal Lawyers Who’ve Helped Defend Donald Trump

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08.29.22 | 9:47 am
WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES - NOV 19: Attorney Sidney Powell speaks during a news conference with Rudy Giuliani, lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump, about lawsuits contesting the results of the presidential electio... WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES - NOV 19: Attorney Sidney Powell speaks during a news conference with Rudy Giuliani, lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump, about lawsuits contesting the results of the presidential election at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday Nov. 19, 2020. (Photo by Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images) MORE LESS

Rudy Giuliani

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 19: Rudy Giuliani accuses people of voting twice as he speaks to the press about various lawsuits related to the 2020 election, inside the Republican National Committee headquarters on November 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump, who has not been seen publicly in several days, continues to push baseless claims about election fraud and dispute the results of the 2020 United States presidential election. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
In the words of the immortal Jesse Pinkman: “When the going gets tough, you don’t want a criminal lawyer, you want a criminal lawyer, know what I’m sayin’?” Rudy Giuliani fits the bill. Giuliani typifies so much about the men and women who’ve represented the 45th President: a mix of sleaze, incompetence, toadying, conspiracy theories and — most recently — attorneys you expect to hear taking your call at Jacoby and Meyers rather than defending the most powerful man in the world. A one-time U.S. Attorney and two-term mayor of New York City, Giuliani was at the top of the world after 9/11. But in the years since he’s been better known for sleazy financial dealings and buckraking. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Rudy Giuliani

<<enter caption here>> on May 30, 2018 in Washington, DC.
After Donald Trump ditched his first crop of Russia probe lawyers, he looked to Rudy Giuliani, who helped him get impeached and worked closely with Trump on trying to overthrow the government. Most recently Mr. Giuliani was in the news when he was informed that he was a target in the election tampering investigation in Atlanta, Georgia. Giuliani also faces various disbarment and disciplinary proceedings in multiple jurisdictions. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Jenna Ellis

Jenna Ellis worked closely with Rudy Giuliani trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election after President Trump lost. Along with Rudy she managed to rack up 63 consecutive losses in the pair’s desperate effort to keep Trump in office. A newcomer to high profile cases, Ellis claimed she’d been a “deputy district attorney” in Colorado when in fact she worked in traffic court and was fired within a year for poor performance. Like Giuliani, Ellis is now tied up in multiple Big Lie investigations like the one in Atlanta, Georgia as well as various bar disciplinary proceedings. Today she bills herself as “America’s lawyer” and appears regularly on Newsmax. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)

Sidney Powell

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 19: Attorney Sidney Powell speaks to the press about various lawsuits related to the 2020 election, inside the Republican National Committee headquarters on November 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump, who has not been seen publicly in several days, continues to push baseless claims about election fraud and dispute the results of the 2020 United States presidential election. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Sidney Powell was the brains behind the various “Kraken” lawsuits and conspiracy theories that were supposed to keep President Trump in office. Every lawsuit failed and now she spends her time trying to hold on to her law license in the face of various lawyer disciplinary proceedings. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Alina Habba

Habba is part of a new crop of Trump lawyers who’ve taken over since Trump’s forced departure from the White House. Her experience prior to representing the former President in various investigations around the country included being the general counsel for an auto garage company in New Jersey. Her three-person law firm is located near Trump’s Bedminster resort. (Molly Crane Newman/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Christine Bobb

Another newcomer to the Trump legal team, Trump found Christina Bobb as a commentator on the pro-Trump news channel OAN. According to The Washington Post, Bobb’s “prior legal experience at the federal level consists mainly of a handful of trademark infringement cases on behalf of CrossFit during a stint at a San Diego law firm.” (Credit: Youtube)

Ty Cobb

Ty Cobb is old school and not just because of the fancy moustache. Cobb was part of the early Trump Russia investigation team and has a long resume as a criminal defense lawyer in Washington, DC. After working for Trump, he’s become less than a fan. Said Cobb: “(Trump) is a disaster for the Republican Party … The Big Lie, and the related violence, election interference and other perceived misconduct, was and is an affront to this nation and its first principles. It has permanently soiled the history pages and deepened the abyss that divides our country.” (Photo By Jerry Cleveland/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

John Dowd

John Dowd was another experienced DC criminal defense attorney who’d represented various luminaries; he was, among other things, hired by the MLB to investigate disgraced would-be Hall of Famer Pete Rose. Dowd eventually soured on Trump and quit in March 2018 after deciding that Trump was “a f-cking liar.” (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Jay Sekulow

UNITED STATES - JANUARY 21: Jay Sekulow, an attorney for President Donald Trump, arrives to the Capitol for the impeachment trial of Trump on Tuesday, January 21, 2020. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Jay Sekulow is a longtime pro-evangelical Christian rights activist who hooked up with Trump after the Dowd and Cobb team bailed. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Jay Sekulow

Sekulow has a strong TV presence and was Trump’s main TV lawyer for the middle years of his presidency. He was part of Trump’s defense team for his first impeachment trial. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Alan Dershowitz

A retired Harvard Law School professor and one-time respected person, recent years have seen Alan Dershowitz spending his time on Fox News defending various Trump shenanigans. He took a brief star turn defending Trump in his first impeachment trial. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

John Eastman

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 04: John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, testifies during a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee June 4, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The committee heard from six representatives of groups that were targeted by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for special scrutiny. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Most recent Trump lawyers have been in the Saul Goodman or personal injury attorney mold. But John Eastman is a big exception. A former professor and dean at the Chapman University School of Law, he even clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. It was Eastman who came up with the idea that Vice President Mike Pence could make Trump be President again even after Trump lost his election. Like many Trump lawyers who didn’t start off with a rap sheet, Eastman is now facing various legal disciplinary proceedings and appears to be at the center of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the events surrounding January 6th. The FBI seized Eastman’s cellphone back in June. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Pam Bondi

Trump met Pam Bondi when she was Attorney General of Florida and an early Trump endorser. Since she toadied for Trump so fulsomely she also got to work on Trump’s defense team for his first impeachment trial.

Pam Bondi

Bondi stuck around after the President’s first impeachment trial and was there to get in on the Big Lie at the end of Trump’s term. Unfortunately, she faded as Jenna Ellis rose. (Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Pam Bondi

UNITED STATES - NOVEMBER 2: Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, attends a rally with Florida governor candidate Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., and other GOP candidates at the Hillsborough County Republican Party office in Tampa on November 2, 2018. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Bondi is pictured attending a rally with Florida’s then-candidate for governor, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R), and other GOP candidates at the Hillsborough County Republican Party office in Tampa on November 2, 2018. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Marc Kasowitz

Marc Kasowitz personal attorney of President Donald Trump makes a statement at the National Press Club, following the congressional testimony of former FBI Director James Comey in Washington, Thursday, June 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Marc Kasowitz was a longtime Trump lawyer before Trump became President. Kasowitz works out of a respected and successful New York City based firm (Kasowitz, Benson, Torres). Trump at first tried to bring Kasowitz in to represent him in the Russia investigation. But it just didn’t work out. Trump took advice to get some seasoned DC players and hired John Dowd and Ty Cobb instead. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

Michael van der Veen

By the time Donald Trump got impeached a second time he was scraping at the bottom of the legal barrel. Trump was deep into his reputation as a “client from hell.” It got so bad he had to settle for Michael van der Deen, a personal injury lawyer from Philly, to defend him before the Senate. (Photo by Congress.gov via Getty Images)

Bruce Castor Jr.

Also defending Trump during his second impeachment trial was Pennsylvania lawyer and sometimes politician Bruce Castor. Castor’s star turn was a speech on the Senate floor widely considered confusing, sleep-inducing and hard to follow. Trump himself was reportedly furious at Castor’s performance. GOP Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) told reporters “I’ve seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of arguments, and that was not one of the finest I’ve seen.” (Photo by Congress.gov via Getty Images)

Lindsey Halligan

Joining the current Trump Dream Team of Christina Bobb and Alina Habba is Lindsey Halligan. She’s a newcomer not just to the Trump Team but even to being a lawyer. She passed the bar in 2014 and according to her online biography has a practice focusing on insurance claims at residential and commercial properties in Fort Lauderdale.

Michael Cohen

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 13: Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's attorney, walks to the Loews Regency hotel on Park Ave on April 13, 2018 in New York City. Following FBI raids on his home, office and hotel room, the Department of Justice announced that they are placing him under criminal investigation. (Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images)
Michael Cohen was Trump’s muscle lawyer before he became President, coaxing the likes of Stormy Daniels into signing NDAs, threatening reporters and generally making problems go away. He was also in the mix in President Trump’s various liaisons and deals with the entourage of Vladimir Putin. But Trump never gave Cohen a plumb White House position and for Cohen it was generally downhill from there. (Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

Michael Cohen

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 13: Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's attorney, takes a phone call near the Loews Regency hotel on Park Ave on April 13, 2018 in New York City. Following FBI raids on his home, office and hotel room, the Department of Justice announced that they are placing him under criminal investigation. (Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images)
Cohen eventually ended up doing time for tax evasion and miscellaneous other crimes tied to being Trump’s peccadillo clean-up man. After emerging from prison he became a fierce Trump critic. (Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

Michael Cohen

Cohen, here, walks to the Loews Regency hotel on Park Ave on April 13, 2018, in New York City. Following FBI raids on his home, office and hotel room, the Department of Justice had announced that they are placing him under criminal investigation. (Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

Evan Corcoran

Evan Corcoran is the nominal head of Trump’s current team dealing with the former President’s purloining of top secret documents owned by the federal government. But he is generally in the background, leaving public appearances to Bobb, Habba and Halligan. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Martin and Jane Raskin

Martin and Jane Raskin weren’t your typical Trump lawyers. From a low profile husband and wife law firm in Florida, the two were neither incompetents nor sleazeballs. They’re respected criminal defense lawyers. Trump brought them on after John Dowd quit and at the same time he made Rudy Giuliani his lead defense lawyer. The Martins went on to play a role at President Trump’s first impeachment trial. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing

UNITED STATES - NOVEMBER 19: Rudolph Giuliani, left, and Joseph diGenova, center, attorneys for President Donald Trump, conduct a news conference at the Republican National Committee on lawsuits regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Thursday, November 19, 2020. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Not all husband and wife teams are respectable non-sleazeballs. There are also the likes of former US Attorney Joe DiGenova and wife and law partner Victoria Toensing. Longtime fixtures of the DC legal scene, both as lawyers and legal commentators, DiGenova and Toensing have a complicated history with Trump. Trump announced he was hiring the two after Dowd’s departure only to quickly un-announce them in favor of the Martins. But don’t fret: they were able to collaborate with Rudy Giuliani and others representing various Kremlin-adjacent oligarchs, businessmen and conmen working with Giuliani on the various schemes that eventually got Trump impeached. They also got in on the Big Lie action, appearing at the famous press conference at which a heated and nervous Giuliani’s hair dye memorably dripped down his temple. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
TPM Staff
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Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. Meet the Sleazebags, Traffic Court Lawyers and Criminal Defendents

    What I want to meet is the TPM headline writer. Just me, an abridged copy of the OED, and a very small little-used desk.

  2. Dowd didn’t represent Pete Rose. Dowd headed up MLB’s investigation of Rose’s gambling at the behest of Commissioner Bart Giamatti, and wrote the report that chronicled Rose’s wagering on baseball games in which he played and managed.

  3. Avatar for ted ted says:

    I saw what you did, smartypants.

  4. Although it has today’s date on it, I think this article may be about 4 years old. Dowd and Cobb haven’t done anything with or for TFG in years.

  5. Avatar for josh_m josh_m says:

    oh yeah of little faith. it notes how they left during the Russia probe.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

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