CNN’s Paula Reid Roasts Trump — Says He Can Get Lawyer For New Jan. 6 Charges ‘As Long As He Pays Up Front’

CNN correspondent Paula Reid roasted ex-President Donald Trump on the heels of the news that an indictment in the January 6 investigation is imminent, calling him a “Lawyer Full Employment Act” and lampooning his habit of not paying people.

Trump seized the news cycle Tuesday when he announced that he’s about to be indicted in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s conduct surrounding the 2020 election and the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

On Tuesday morning’s edition of CNN News Central, Reid reported live from Florida, and told viewers that her sources say Trump should be able to find a lawyer “as long as he pays up front”:

JOHN BERMAN: Reid is there. Paula Obviously, Trump’s got a lot of lawyers who’ve been talking about a lot of different things in a lot of different cases. What are the likely defenses here?

PAULA REID: So we don’t know what the actual charges will be in this case, but we can guess at the legal strategy. Well, first step, though, even though the former president is really a lawyer full employment act, he will likely need to bring on additional lawyers if he is facing additional criminal charges related to January 6.

We know when he was charged in the classified document case here in Florida, it was a little difficult for him to find additional attorneys to bring on to his team. Now, it’s difficult for him to find lawyers for a few reasons.

One reason we’ve been told is that some lawyers are a little bit nervous about taking him on as a client, concerned they may not get paid.

But I am told that he will likely be able to find defense attorneys down here in Florida as long as he pays them up front.

But there’s also a political cost to taking on former President Trump. Lawyers have told us they are worried about alienating some of their current clients by representing him in this ongoing criminal trial. And it will likely be similar up in Washington. We know he has had trouble over the past few years finding prominent D.C.-based attorneys who are willing to take him on as a client.

But no matter who he hires as a lawyer, we can expect that he will likely try to delay any possible criminal case until after the 2024 election. And we know that because that’s already the strategy that they’re taking down here in Florida. They’ve made it clear to the judge, while the special counsel says they’d be ready to take this Florida case to trial in December, the defense attorneys have said it’s premature to even think about a trial date and that they would like to litigate a lot of different constitutional questions, many unprecedented, before taking this to trial.

So it is expected if the former president is charged and it appears that he likely will be because he’s received this target letter, he will have to take on additional lawyers because he’s lost most of his legal team that’s handled that case over the past few months. Once he’s able to find those lawyers, we can expect that they will try to delay, delay, delay.

Watch above via CNN News Central.