JUST IN: Maggie Haberman Reports Trump Shaking Up Legal Team Hours Before Arrest
New York Times correspondent, best-selling author, and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman revealed new moves in ex-President Donald Trump’s legal team just hours before he surrenders for arrest in Georgia — the hiring of one lawyer and likely ouster of another.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announced a new indictment of Trump on 13 counts related to election crimesladt week. Trump and the 18 co-defendants named in the indictment were given until August 25 to surrender for arrest and arraignment, and Trump has said he will surrender Thursday.
Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat has promised that if Trump is arrested, he will be forced to pose for a mugshot, which would then be made available to the press. The entire scene figures to be a media spectacle of unprecedented proportions.
But just hours before his latest date with infamy, Trump’s team confirmed the hiring of a new lawyer, and Haberman’s sources tipped her to the likely ouster of another. From Haberman, Richard Fausset, and Danny Hakim write:
Just before his visit to an Atlanta jail to be booked on 13 felony counts, Donald J. Trump has shaken up his Georgia legal defense team, adding Steve Sadow, a veteran criminal defense lawyer who has taken on a number of high-profile cases.
Mr. Trump’s decision comes soon after one of his lawyers, Drew Findling, and his two other lawyers in Atlanta, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg, negotiated a $200,000 bond for Mr. Trump, who is one of 19 defendants in a sweeping racketeering indictment charging them with engaging in a “criminal enterprise” that sought to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Mr. Findling is unlikely to be kept on, according to a person familiar with the matter, while Ms. Little will be retained.
Trump’s surrender comes the day after the first GOP debate on Fox News, a move that some have theorized was a deliberate ploy to take attention away from the other candidates in the presidential race.
