Trump’s lawyers are also on trial

They’ve been accused of orchestrating a criminal conspiracy. They’ve been dubbed ethically compromised. They’ve been labeled liars. They could even be called to testify in the impeachment case they were hired to combat.

In the opening days of Donald Trump’s Senate trial, it has at times felt like the president’s lawyers are his co-defendants.

“Nonsense,” said Jay Sekulow, the longest-serving personal attorney to Trump, when asked about the litany of allegations flying around Capitol Hill.

Welcome to impeachment in the Trump era, where the president cheers on his attorneys as they blow right past any suggestion that they themselves were direct witnesses — if not culpable — in a scheme that helped make their client America’s third chief executive to be impeached.

t’s a theme that has been replayed throughout Trump’s life: The lawyers he brings in to authorize and defend his behavior end up in their own legal morass. Trump’s longtime legal fixer, Michael Cohen, is doing three years in federal prison for his election-season role in paying off women who alleged affairs with Trump. Former White House counsel Don McGahn ended up as a star witness for special counsel Robert Mueller after he had a front-row seat to Trump’s potential obstruction of justice. Rudy Giuliani has hired a team of criminal defense attorneys as the Justice Department investigates his recent behavior while serving as personal counsel to the president.

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