Former President Donald Trump’s advisers are so furious over departing defense attorney Tim Parlatore’s recent CNN interview—an interview they feel potentially implicated them in a Mar-a-Lago classified documents case coverup—that they are now trying to ruin Parlatore’s reputation, according to two sources briefed on the situation.
So upset is the Trump team, one of the sources said, that his lawyers have floated the idea of suing Parlatore or filing a bar complaint to mar his professional credentials.
“He basically called into question the legal team’s ethical guidelines,” this source said. “So everyone who stayed…he put everyone in a very bad position.”
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After Parlatore left the legal team defending the former president against Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith last month, he then appeared opposite CNN reporter Paula Reid on May 20. During that interview, Parlatore revealed that internal legal squabbles prompted his departure. But one particular disclosure during the interview irked Trump’s advisers more than any other: Parlatore said Trump’s right-hand legal and public affairs guy, Boris Epshteyn, used his authority to run interference and halt legal cooperation with the feds.
“There were certain things like the searches that he had attempted to interfere with,” Parlatore told CNN’s senior legal affairs correspondent, adding that Epshteyn “had really done everything he could to try to block us—to prevent us from doing what we could to defend the president.”
Epshteyn “served as kind of a filter to prevent us from getting information to the client,” he said.
“In my opinion,” Parlatore continued, “he was not very honest with us or with the client on certain things.”
Down at Mar-a-Lago, those comments were perceived as a betrayal, according to three people familiar with internal discussions. These sources noted that it was Epshteyn who initially brought Parlatore into the Mar-a-Lago classified documents legal team. Parlatore was already on Trump’s radar, given that the New York City defense lawyer represented the accused war criminal Eddie Gallagher, a chief petty officer and Navy SEAL who was convicted of posing for a picture with a dead captive’s body in Iraq and subsequently demoted—that is, until Trump used his executive authority to intervene and grant him clemency that essentially functioned as a pardon.
Parlatore’s comments about Epshteyn did more than offend the Trump adviser, who serves dual roles as a public affairs guru and something of a legal consigliere within Trump’s insular inner circle. According to two sources, Parlatore’s revelation was interpreted as an accusation that Epshteyn was using his position of influence to obstruct the DOJ special counsel’s investigation.
“He puts himself out there, goes on TV and motherfucks people,” said one of these sources. “To say Boris is obstructing—who gets hurt there? Trump gets hurt there. That’s a serious, serious, true ethical violation. It’s a fucked-up thing to do.”
Members of the Trump team began to wish that Parlatore had just remained quiet on his way out—and only come clean if pressured by the feds, who are increasingly turning the interrogation room spotlight onto Trump’s own defense lawyers.
“Just shut up, go on your way. And if you get asked under oath, then you testify,” this insider added.
Meanwhile, other Trumpworld insiders said Parlatore wasn’t exactly wrong about his assessment of Epshteyn—just that he should have simply kept it to himself.
“I agree that Boris is an asshole,” said another person, a Trump lawyer who has had their own run-ins with Epshteyn. “But I’ve never seen anybody quit and go on TV and discuss attorney-client matters. That’s pretty crazy. Do I think it was completely inappropriate? Of course!”
One of Trump’s many defense lawyers, Alina Habba, hinted at the simmering animosity during a recent CNN interview where she derided Parlatore’s comments as a “ridiculous, inappropriate, kind of butt-hurt move,” using internet slang that refers to when someone overreacts to a situation with a childish tantrum.
Reached on Tuesday, Parlatore expressed surprise at the idea that his former colleagues would target him with retribution—or see anything he said as a threat.
“Nobody has discussed this with me, and I hope any professional attorney would beforehand,” he said. “I am completely and totally confident with the ethics and everything I’ve done in this case–and my departure. I was talking about Boris’ obstruction of other attorneys doing their job. I didn’t implicate anyone in any wrongdoing.”
And Parlatore, for the first time, revealed why he came out swinging against Boris on national TV: It was a way of knocking down rumors that he had quit due to the feds coming after him—and quashing any notion that he might flip as a result and turn into a government witness against his former client, the ex-president.
Meanwhile, in official statements, Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign has used muted language to distance itself from its former teammate.
“Mr. Parlatore is no longer a member of the legal team. His statements regarding current members of the legal team are unfounded and categorically false,” spokesman Steve Cheung said in a recent statement.
A person familiar with the situation noted that the wording of the statement falls just short of what could be considered a defamatory statement about Parlatore, seeking to push back against him without provoking him into speaking out further.
But more aggressive retaliation is afoot.
Several of Trump’s confidants allegedly viewed Parlatore’s comments about internal discussions as a “violation” of a lawyer’s duty to keep private what are called attorney-client communications, according to two people familiar with those discussions.
With that alleged violation in mind, they have apparently considered filing a bar complaint with the New York state courts’ Attorney Disciplinary Grievance Committee, one person said. Unlike a lawsuit, which would be public and immediately result in highly visible mudslinging, a bar complaint would in theory remain secret forever unless the lawyer is ultimately sanctioned. That professional review process could be weaponized to annoy him with minimal blowback.
But a lawyer familiar with the situation countered that a bar complaint could actually free Parlatore from any additional attorney-client obligations, opening him up to revealing even more dirt about the Trump team.
Still, there’s no sign that Parlatore did, in fact, say something that could be useful to the feds. Parlatore noted that Smith’s investigators have not yet reached out to him as of Tuesday night.
Smith is investigating how Trump took more than 100 classified documents with him when he left the White House in 2021 and hoarded them at his oceanside Florida estate at Mar-a-Lago. And defense lawyers working on that case have warned the former president he’ll likely get indicted, possibly for obstruction of justice, according to Rolling Stone.
As The Daily Beast revealed on Tuesday, these lawyers have started to turn on each other under the mounting pressure.
