Trump lawyer in classified documents probe resigns

Tim Parlatore, one of the lawyers defending Donald Trump against special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the handling of documents marked as classified, has resigned from the former president’s legal team.

"It's personal and it's got nothing to do with my belief in the strength of the case,” Parlatore told POLITICO Wednesday morning. CNN first reported his departure from Trump’s legal team.

Parlatore began representing Trump as he lawyered up amid a growing number of legal threats, including Smith’s other investigation into Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election.

Parlatore’s exit is the latest example of tension and turmoil in Trump’s legal shop. The former president has often surrounded himself by lawyers with competing strategies.

Trump was recently found liable earlier this month in a federal civil trial in New York for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll. He was represented in the trial by Joe Tacopina, a New York based lawyer who has also represented other Trump allies, including Kimberly Guilfoyle and Sean Hannity.

Parlatore’s distaste for Tacopina was evident in a recent CNN appearance, when anchor Kaitlan Collins pressed Parlatore on Tacopina’s work for Trump in yet another case: the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal charges against Trump related to hush money payments to a porn star.

“I’m not going to comment on Joe Tacopina,” Parlatore told Collins.

His departure isn’t the only tumult Trump’s legal team has faced, even as the legal threats he faces have grown more acute. Last summer, Trump hired Florida attorney Chris Kise to help with the Justice Department investigation — and the pro-Trump super PAC Save America paid him a multi-million dollar retainer. But within months, Kise was sidelined from that work and dispatched to work on the New York attorney general’s civil case against Trump, according to CNN.

Another Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran, has testified to Smith’s grand jury about the documents at Mar-a-Lago that were marked as classified. Parlatore confirmed that he testified to the grand jury as well.

Parlatore previously drew national attention for representing Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes. After a dramatic trial, Gallagher was acquitted. Parlatore also advised Pineapple, a group of U.S. veterans who rescued people from Afghanistan after the botched military pull-out in August of 2021.