Credits go to Donald Trump’s most loyal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, whose legal troubles have dramatically altered his once-lavish lifestyle. Though he gave up prized positions, including his license to practice law in Washington, he remained loyal to Trump. The president too did not forget his favors and decided to present Giuliani with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
There is a reason why no other former lawyers of Trump are running for the medal. That’s because all of them had at some point turned against the President. There were innumerable times when his attorneys found themselves in a hot legal mess and tried their best to aid Trump, but failed miserably. In fact, one can hardly blame Trump’s former lawyers for trying to save themselves by turning on him.
Michael Cohen is one of them, who was once known as Trump’s biggest supporter but turned into his critic. This happened after Trump’s dramatic exit from the White House in 2020. Cohen was also highly involved in Trump’s hush money trial.
Cohen diligently supported the President but eventually recognized the legal risks of continuing their association. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to tax fraud and campaign finance violations and was sentenced to prison.
Like Michael Cohen, Jenna Ellis was a dedicated MAGA loyalist. She had been serving Trump as a senior legal adviser since 2019. Ellis was a key attorney in helping change the President’s narrative in the 2020 election, which was rigged against him. In November 2020, she claimed on Fox News that the president “won in a landslide.” She also stated that his legal team had proof that “there had been a coordinated effort in all of these states to transfer votes either from Trump to Biden, to manipulate the ballots, to count them in secret.” (via Politico)
After she misrepresented facts, she was in a deep mess with the authorities. Ellis then admitted that all her claims about a stolen election were false. She willingly chose to cooperate with the authorities and helped in the investigation of Donald Trump. She pleaded guilty to a felony charge of trying to overturn the election results in Georgia.
During the 2016 election, when Robert Mueller was investigating the possibility of Russian interference, it was Ty Cobb who was representing the Trump administration. The only reason he still has a license to practice law is that he never directly worked as Trump’s personal attorney.
Cobb soon became a critic of the Trump Administration during his second term. He even gave White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt a weird new nickname while he was calling out the President.
Sidney Powell, too, was once determined to help Trump overturn the 2020 election. Trump even titled her as a “GREAT LAWYER” in a 2019 X post. He also gave her a shout-out in another post on the platform shortly after he lost the 2020 election. He said, Powell and the other attorneys helping Trump were “a truly great team” who were “going to help him defend OUR RIGHT to FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS!”
By 2023, things had changed a lot. Powell, who was once stringent on defending Trump, pleaded guilty to several charges. She admitted to attempting to overturn the election results in Georgia, and soon the President distanced himself from her. He took to Truth Social and wrote, “Despite the Fake News reports to the contrary, and without even reaching out to ask the Trump Campaign, MS. POWELL WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS” (via NBC News).
