That’s not what is being reported. Former federal attorneys on MSNBC have said that Trump will still surrender tomorrow and enter an plea. However, the rest of the formal arraignment could be postponed.
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You make totally valid points, but you can’t find even a shred of irony or schadenfreude in the idea that a billionaire who’s burned every bridge imaginable is forced into the same boat as a regular old poor by his own hand?
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Fair points, all. I want Trump to get fucked, and ironically he’d be well-served to have a federal PD working for him as local counsel. I also just don’t like civic institutions that we should be proud of as (nominally) civilized society of law being used as a punching bag to look down on. I think it’s part of the problem, not a recognition of the problem.
I intended to refer to the arraignment, which will probably be pushed after tomorrow’s initial appearance if he doesn’t have local counsel. When a defendant doesn’t have proper counsel yet, what usually happens is a plea of not guilty may be entered, and a short date given for them to retain counsel.
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He’s fucking stalling and we all know it.
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Off the top of my head: The lawyer has to be barred/admitted in the federal circuit/district the case is in. The 11th for this case. Most (all?) Federal court circuits require a lawyer to be licensed and in good standing in at least one state and be sponsored by an already-admitted federal lawyer. IIRC, once admitted in a single district/circuit, it isn’t hard to get admitted to practice in others.
Regarding public defenders- they are seriously some of the most dedicated and skilled attorneys in the country. Their case loads are insane. Their offices criminally underfunded. Yeah, there are some bad ones. But on the whole? They are a group of people with a passion for the law. They have to be- they get paid shit and almost no choice in clients.
In almost every jurisdiction, the services of a public defender are reserved for those too poor, and I mean really poor, to hire a lawyer. The standards vary but we are taking well below poverty level for most jurisdictions.
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Agreed 100%. It’s by virtue of those wonderful institutions that we can be so privileged and derisive. And for that I am eternally grateful. 
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No, this was a delaying tactic. When those lawyers resigned, Trump no longer had counsel with the security clearance necessary to review classified documents. Getting clearance for the new team can take months.
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Could that be his genius plan?
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Came here to say that, but you beat me to it.
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it’s really too bad that lawyering is such an underpaid job overall, otherwise there might be some way of balancing that out 
( a tax on every corporate law firm maybe? )
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I mean, I’m pretty sure he couldn’t practice law before either, not for a long time, it’s just that now he’s not allowed to.
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MAGA - Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
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Not to get too off topic, but the public defender thing works differently in different states. Where I live, for example, we don’t have designated “public defenders,” but practicing criminal lawyers are on a roster and are assigned “public defense” cases on a rotation, part of the price of getting to practice here. I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but just wanted to point out that it varies.
Other things people have brought up in this thread do make me wonder if his attorneys resigning was part of an overall stall tactic. Has anyone seen any chatter about that? Were they trying to do him a favor, or was that just a side effect?
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I think someone tipped his lawyers off to the part of the indictment that shows that Trump lied and lied and lied to his lawyers. Even though they were putting their name and their license on the line certifying that he had turned over everything.
It’s one thing to represent a client that is difficult. It’s one thing to represent a client who isn’t known for paying their bills. It’s another thing entirely to represent a client who is both of those things and who lies to their own lawyer. A client who lies and puts their licenses at risk is just too much
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New Jersey has a mixed system. There are public defenders, but they also assign private attorneys from a pool. You can get yourself removed from that pool by completing a certain number of hours of pro bono work every year.
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this brilliant move causes the dept of justice to collapse in confusion while Trump walks away triumphant as usual. /s
I heard one reasonable-sounding legal expert on the news claim that it’s not really that unusual to switch up one’s legal counsel at a juncture like this. The explanation was basically “These lawyers were hired for the specific job of stopping Trump from getting indicted. They did their best but ultimately failed. Now Trump is going to hire a different set of lawyers with a different mission: to get him off the hook for the charges he’s been indicted for.”
IANAL and all that, but it doesn’t sound as nuts as most of the takes coming from the “nothing to see here!” crowd.
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This is true. Different lawyers have different specialties. The part here that is unusual is how two of his lawyers resigned before he had the new lawyers set up. It is not unusual for a lawyer to pass a client onto another when they don’t have the expertise the client needs. But they don’t resign before they have set up competent counsel. Not unless there’s a really big problem in the client attorney relationship
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The most “nuts” thing about it, from where I am, is that it seems like if he scares away any legal representation, yet isn’t eligible for being assigned a PD, he could seemingly stall this thing forever? And walk free the whole time?
Seems like a major flaw in the system.
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An opportunity in his opinion for sure.
If he had opened a School for White Collar Criminals in lieu of the bogus real estate Trump U. he’d be rolling in real money money right now.
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