As Donald Trump awaits trial over his handling of classified national security documents, his longtime attorney, Evan Corcoran, is leaving the former president's legal team. Citing multiple sources, CNN reported late Thursday that the departure is a significant blow to Trump, as Corcoran could be called as a key witness against him should the long-delayed trial go forward.
According to the indictment filed last year, Trump and associates conspired to hide boxes full of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in south Florida, and ignored demands to return them to the National Archives. Trump himself faces 40 felony charges, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
In the lead-up to the indictment, Corcoran appeared before an investigating grand jury to discuss his conversations with Trump after a district judge ruled that his personal notes and voice memos were not subject to attorney-client privilege.
Corcoran's notes were invaluable to prosecutors, providing a "road map" to build the case.
"These are contemporaneous renditions of what was going on," Catherine Ross, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, told Salon at the time.
At trial, Trump's former attorney could be asked to discuss an attempted cover up. According to his own notes, when Corcoran found 38 classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and discussed his finding with Trump, the former president fretted over what to do with them. The two discussed storing them in a hotel room, with the former president allegedly making a "plucking motion" that Corcoran recorded as a directive to remove any especially incriminating documents from the pile.
Corcoran later recused himself from representing Trump in the case, though he continued to perform other legal work for the former president. If and when the trial begins after months of delay and logistical issues, Corcoran will likely have to stand as a witness for the prosecution, led by special counsel Jack Smith. Given his working relationship with the former president, that testimony could be extremely damaging.
Corcoran's depature follows the exit of other Trump lawyers, including Jim Trusty and John Rowley. That leaves the former president with a team of attorneys who are relative newcomers who did not interact with the Justice Department in the lead-up to Trump's indictment.
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