Former President Donald J. Trump has retained the services of a prominent attorney in order to assist him in dealing with the fallout of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s search of his club and home in Florida as well as the ongoing criminal investigation into his handling of sensitive government documents.
Christopher M. Kise, the attorney in question, formerly held the position of solicitor general for the state of Florida, was successful in four issues brought before the United States Supreme Court, and served as a transition consultant for the current Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. Two of Mr. Trump’s allies said that Mr. Kise, who is now working as a lawyer in private practise, joined the team in a formal capacity in recent days. NBC News had already reported that his hiring had taken place.
Mr. Kise will be joining a team that a number of other high-profile attorneys have avoided joining due to their concerns over Mr. Trump’s history of nonpayment or his insistence on attempting to handle his own legal operations. Mr. Kise will be joining a team that Mr. Trump will be leading himself.
According to two individuals who are close to Mr. Trump, the process of recruiting him has been in the works for many weeks since the search began on August 8.
On the case, which involves the handling of hundreds of pages of government documents, many of which were marked as highly classified, Mr. Kise will join James Trusty and M. Evan Corcoran, two attorneys who are not licenced to practise law in Florida. The case is related to the handling of the documents. Since Mr. Trump departed the White House on January 20, 2021, at the conclusion of his term, he had been storing the papers at his members-only club and house in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. He had moved there on January 20, 2021.
Both Mr. Trusty and Mr. Corcoran have prior experience working for the federal government as prosecutors. Mr. Trusty has prior expertise working on cases involving organised crime. Boris Epshteyn, a former lawyer at the firm Milbank who became active in politics and worked on both of Mr. Trump’s campaigns, and who has championed Mr. Trump’s claims, which have been debunked in dozens of lawsuits, that the election was stolen from him, is the closest thing the legal team has to a quarterback. Epshteyn has argued that the election was stolen from Mr. Trump.
It is anticipated that Mr. Kise will be a member of the team that will be appearing in federal court in Florida on Thursday before Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by President Trump. Judge Cannon has given indications that she intends to go ahead and grant Mr. Trump’s request to appoint a special master to conduct an investigation into whether or not any of the information that was seized by the federal agents falls within the protection of executive privilege.
Due to the fact that Mr. Trump is not currently serving as president and that executive privilege protects the president’s office, the request has prompted a number of issues.
The Justice Department has said that authorities had already screened out any evidence that may possibly be protected by attorney-client privilege that was obtained during the search, stating that the amount of such material was very small. However, this issue is unrelated to the appointment of a special master that Mr. Trump’s legal team is attempting to get.