Former President Donald Trump told attendees at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday night that he rejected some of the biggest law firms and lawyers in the country because he doesn’t “need any help.”
Earlier this month, two of the former president’s top lawyers resigned from his defense team after the DOJ announced it would charge Trump with 37 counts related to his handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Jim Trusty and John Rowley, who previously led Trump’s legal team in Washington, D.C., indicated they would no longer represent him in the Jack Smith probe and his $475 million defamation suit against CNN.
However, despite difficulties retaining new legal representation, Trump bragged to a group of supporters at a fundraiser at Bedminster that some of the “biggest” firms and lawyers have called him asking to represent him in the upcoming federal trial.
“I tell all these people, they all come in — they want to help,” Trump said speaking about the upcoming 2024 election. “The biggest, some of the biggest people, the biggest law firms, the biggest lawyers, I say listen, “I don’t need any help. I don’t want any help in campaigns.”
The Guardian reported ahead of Trump’s arraignment in Miami earlier in the month that Howard Srebnick and David Markus were among the Florida lawyers who Trump interviewed who declined to take the case.
Watch the full speech below:
. @realDonaldTrump's full speech at Bedminster this evening: pic.twitter.com/dS1pzrXHQD
— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) June 23, 2023
