Trump documents trial could last ‘several months’: Miami criminal defense attorney

MIAMI (FLV) – Miami attorney Gus Lage of the SMGQ law firm provided his perspective on Tuesday’s historic federal indictment of former President Donald Trump.

Lage outlined both the potential procedural and factual defenses that Trump’s attorneys may use, including a potential legal battle over Trump’s attorney-client privilege.

In March, a judge ruled that not only could prosecutors override assertions of the privilege, but also compel Evan Corcoran, a lawyer who formerly represented Trump, to answer more questions without the protections of the legal privilege.

Normally, attorney-client privilege protects communications between a lawyer and his or her client from being seen and used by prosecutors or the court. However, the “crime-fraud exception” permits a court to penetrate said communications if “the legal advice was used in furtherance of an illegal or fraudulent activity.”

“It’s a big issue because if you prevail on that, you knock out two witnesses against you,” Lage said. “There’s nothing more sacrosanct than American jurisprudence and the attorney client privilege or work product privilege. So it’s a big point.”

On the merits of the case, Lage laid out the factual issues and disputes at hand including the classification level and importance of the documents, as well as Trump’s possible motive for keeping the documents.

“I think that the espionage count is very, very tenuous, but the false statement counts, potentially the obstruction of justice counts, are the ones that seem to have a little bit more teeth and are more factually based,” Lage said. “So those are the bigger concern, when you look at the entire case.”

Reports in recent days have indicated that Trump may be having some difficulty finding local counsel to represent him on the case.

When asked why this might be the case, Lage explained the magnitude of dedication a lawyer or firm would have to assign toward the Trump case and how it could impact them later.

“You have to leave this firm and open up his own shop in order to represent President Trump,” Lage said. “It does entail you giving up your practice for the next year, year and a half, to try and dedicate yourself to this kind of case, and how are your partners gonna feel about it?”

Trump pled not guilty to all 37 counts of the indictment against him on Tuesday afternoon, when he faced federal arraignment at a Miami courthouse.