It was a dramatic development in Trump’s second impeachment trial, which has struggled to find lawyers willing to accept his case. And now, with legal documents for the coming week and a trial scheduled to start just a few days later, Trump is clinging to his electoral fraud charade and suddenly finds himself without legal representation.
Josh Howard, a North Carolina lawyer who was recently added to the team, also left, according to another source familiar with the changes. Johnny Gasser and Greg Harris, also from South Carolina, are also no longer involved in the case.
No other lawyer has announced that he is working to defend Trump’s impeachment.
A person familiar with the exits told CNN that Trump wanted lawyers to argue that there was massive electoral fraud and that the election was stolen from him, rather than focusing on the legality of convicting a president after he stepped down. Trump was not receptive to discussions about how they should proceed in this regard.
The lawyers had not yet received any advance payment and no letter of intent was signed.
CNN contacted the lawyers for comment.
“Democrats’ efforts to remove a president who has already stepped down are totally unconstitutional and very bad for our country. In fact, 45 senators have already voted that it is unconstitutional. We did a lot of work, but we didn’t make a final decision on our legal team, which will be formed soon, “former Trump campaign advisor Jason Miller told CNN.
Bowers, a respected attorney from Columbia, South Carolina, has previously served in President George W. Bush’s Department of Justice.
Barbier, a litigator from South Carolina, worked closely on several important cases and was a former federal prosecutor for 15 years in the state before opening her own criminal defense firm.
Gasser and Harris are former federal prosecutors. Gasser served as an interim United States attorney for South Carolina early in his career. Both worked closely with Barbier on the defense side.
Howard worked as an independent associate attorney in the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky investigations during the Clinton presidency and spent a decade in the Department of Justice, where he worked on the confirmations of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Samuel Alito. Howard previously served as president of the North Carolina State Electoral Council, stepping down in early 2016.
This story has been updated to include reports on additional Trump team matches.
CNN’s Kara Scannell and Manu Raju contributed to this report.