Former President Donald Trump recently suffered a legal setback this week as he lost one of his top attorneys in two of his cases, at least for a while. It has been noted that Christopher Kise, “one of his most-trusted and high-profile defense lawyers…is undergoing surgery,” as per Newsweek, which cited newly filed court papers.
Kise is currently scheduled to have planned surgery on Monday, April 29, and will be unavailable until at least May 14, a notice to the court filed on Wednesday said, according to Newsweek.
Kise’s unavailability could continue during “the post-surgery recovery period, which will restrict his ability to work and travel during that time,” the filing added.
Newsweek added:
Kise, a former solicitor general of Florida who has won four U.S. Supreme Court cases, has been a key figure in the former president’s ongoing documents case and in the New York civil fraud case, which Trump is appealing. The filing didn’t reveal the reason behind the surgery nor how long Kise’s recovery period could last.
Kise has represented Trump in his civil fraud trial that he lost but which was presided over by Judge Arthur Engoron, who, early on, displayed hostility and bias against Trump. Kise is also representing the former president in his hush money case in Manhattan.
Regarding the latter, a legal expert wrote in The New York Times and declared that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump is a mistake of “historic” proportions.
Jed Handelsman Shugerman, a law professor at Boston University, believes that the Manhattan District Attorney’s prosecution of a federal election offense under New York state law is an overreach. He criticized the vagueness of the allegations against Donald Trump, pointing out that the prosecution failed to specify a valid theory of fraud or an election crime.
Trump is facing 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. The trial continued on Wednesday, with Trump appearing in court as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
