It was a dramatic development in the second indictment for Trump, who struggled to find lawyers willing to take his case. And now, with legal orders due to appear next week and a trial set to begin only days later, Trump is holding on to his election fraud and suddenly finds himself without legal representation.
Josh Howard, a North Carolina attorney who was recently added to the team, has also left, according to another source familiar with the changes. Johnny Gasser and Greg Harris, from South Carolina, are also no longer involved in the case.
No other attorneys have announced they are working on Trump’s indictment.
A person familiar with the departure told CNN Trump wants lawyers to argue that there is mass election fraud and that the election was stolen from him rather than focusing on the legality of a president’s conviction after he left office. Trump was not receptive to the discussions on how they should proceed in this regard.
The lawyers have not yet paid any upfront fees and a letter of intent has never been signed.
CNN contacted the lawyers for comment.
“The Democrats’ attempts to prosecute a president who has already left office are completely unconstitutional and so bad for our country. In fact, 45 senators have already voted that it is unconstitutional. We have done a lot of work but have not.” a final decision on our legal team, which will be made soon, ”former Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller told CNN.
Bowers, a respected attorney from Columbia, South Carolina, once worked in the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush.
Barbier, a litigator in South Carolina, has worked closely with several notable cases and was a former federal prosecutor in the state for 15 years before opening her own boutique criminal defense firm.
Gasser and Harris are both former federal prosecutors. Gasser served earlier in his career as interim U.S. attorney for South Carolina. Both worked closely with Barbier on the defensive side.
During the Clinton presidency, Howard worked as an independent lawyer on the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky investigations and spent a decade in the Department of Justice, working on the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Samuel Alito, Supreme Court Justice. . Howard previously served as chairman of the North Carolina State Board of Elections and left office in early 2016.
This story has been updated to include reporting on the additional anomalies of Trump’s team.
CNN’s Kara Scannell and Manu Raju contributed to this report.